LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  O 

DAVIS 


j-^**-/r/r 


J 

K 


THE 


STORY   OF  AVIS. 


BY 

ELIZABETH   STUART   PHELPS, 
AUTHOR  OF  "THE  GATES  AJAR." 


Now,  all  the  meaning  of  the  King  was  to  see  Sir  Galahad  proved.' 


BOSTON : 
JAMES   R.   OSGOOD   AND    COMPANY, 

(Late  TICKNOB  &  FIELDS,  and  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co.) 
1877. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1877,  BY 
JAMES    K>    OSGOOD    &    CO. 

ALL  BIGHTS  RESERVED. 


Franklin  Press ' 

Randy  Avery,  and  Company t 

//7  Franklin  Street^ 


Pray  you,  say  nothing;  pray  you,  who  neither  feel 
nor  see  the  rain,  being  in't." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  And  all  I  saw  was  on  the  sunny  ground, 
The  flying  shadow  of  an  unseen  bird." 

WHAT  was  it  about  her  ? 
Coy  Bishop  at  the  Poetry  Club  that  night, 
while  a  theological  student  with  a  cold  in  his  head 
was  declaiming  from  the  second  canto,  sat  per- 
versely wondering.  It  was  becoming  to  Coy  to 
wonder ;  she  did"  not  very  often,  —  being  a  blonde, 
with  a  small  mouth  and  happy  eyes. 

She  changed  the  accent  of  her  thoughts  as  they 
pursued  her ;  out  of  irresistible  sympathy,  perhaps 
with  the  reader,  who  experienced  some  elocutionary 
difficulty  in  changing  his ;  though,  indeed,  she  found 
her  own  revery  so  much  more  to  the  purpose  just 
then  than  her  desire  for  literary  culture,  that  she 
conceived  a  distaste  for  the  3roung  gentleman  as  a 
tiresome  interruption,  and  hoped  that  some  of  the 
girls  would  refuse  him  before  the  winter  was  over. 

7 


8  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

What  was  it  then  about  her?  There  was  more 
sense  than  sj^ntax  in  Coy's  question ;  at  least  a 
sense  perfectly  clear  to  herself,  who,  as  the  only 
person  concerned  in  this  mute  discussion,  had  obvi- 
ous rhetorical  rights  therein. 

This  was  in  the  days  when  young  ladies  had  not 
begun  to  have  "  opinions  "  upon  the  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution, and  before  feminine  friendship  and  estrange- 
ments were  founded  on  the  distinctions  between 
protoplasm  and  bioplasm.  Yet,  even  fifteen  years 
ago,  the  resemblance  of  the  human  face  to  different 
types  of  animals  was  no  novelty  to  any  thoughtful 
fancy.  So,  too,  the  likenesses  in  the  human  body 
to  forms  of  life  incident  to  the  vegetable  world,  were 
surprising  only  to  people  ignorant  of  the  anatomy 
of  the  nervous  and  arterial  systems. 

Coy  was  not  ignorant.  Harmouth  girls  never 
were.  Her  mind  was  stocked  with  facts  sufficient 
to  bring  these  correspondences  before  it.  But  there 
she  stumbled  upon  a  dense  idea  across  which  neither 
the  diploma  of  the  Harmouth  Female  Seminary,  nor 
the  "  course  of  study  "  in  which  all  Harmouth  girls 
engaged,  could  strike  a  light.  Had  anybody  ever 
said  that  people  resembled  metals  ?  Was  it  Galileo, 
or  Socrates  ?  Newton  perhaps.  Or  —  or  —  could  it 
have  been  John  Rose  ? 

The  theological  reader  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room  just  then,  suddenly  observing  Miss  Bishop's 
averted  face,  floundered  into  an  acute  embarrassment 
upon  seeing  that  she  blushed  swiftly,  and  wondered 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

if  he  had  read  from  the  love-passages  too  long.  His 
mind  gathered  an  immediate  accretion  to  the  convic- 
tion that  light  literary  work  was  unsuitable  to  the 
preparation  for  the  gospel  ministry. 

Coy  was  not  blushing  about  John  Rose :  young 
men  are  too  common  in  Harmouth  to  be  easily 
blushed  about.  She  was  aware  of  a  certain  incon- 
gruousness  in  that  fancy  about  the  metals.  What 
was  the  use  of  reading-clubs,  and  suffering  such  anx- 
iety about  the  coffee,  when  one  took  one's  turn,  if 
one  could  not  tell  whether  one  owed  an  idea  to  an 
old  Greek,  or  an  evening  caller?  That  she  could 
have  originated  it,  Coy  never  for  an  instant  con- 
ceived. She  left  ideas  to  Avis. 

What  she  meant  about  the  metals  was  this.  All 
people  in  their  plrysical  natures  are  akin  to  some 
form  of  inorganic  existence.  Some,  for  instance,  are 
clay,  sheer  clay,  mud.  Certain  metals  enter  into  the 
composition  of  certain  temperaments  :  brass  or  iron, 
gold,  silver,  or  steel,  stratifies  in  the  nature,  and 
gives  character  to  body  and  soul.  "  Who  knows, " 
Coy  would  have  said  if  she  could,  —  "who  knows 
but  a  skilful  soul-geologist  may  learn  to  detect  these 
metallic  traces  in  men  and  women,  and  can  act 
upon  the  character  of  a  soul's  topograph}7  accord- 
ingly, can  map  it  with  some  accuracy,  can  fathom 
its  wealth,  or  measure  its  barrenness,  indicate  the 
presence  of  its  mines,  discover  its  fossils,  account 
for  its  deluges,  prophesy  its  earthquakes,  its  volca- 
noes ?  "  It  was  surely  in  the  old  creed  of  the  alclie- 


10  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

mists,  that  metals  were  endowed  with  sense  and 
feeling,  and  possessed  of  either  masculine  or  femi- 
nine qualities.  Then  why  not  the  man  or  the 
woman  with  the  sense  or  the  trait  of  the  metal? 

Now,  Avis  was  a  magnet. 

Coy's  metallic  theory  had  by  this  time  rather  run 
away  with  her.  But  of  so  much  she  was  sure : 
when  Avis  was  a  baby,  mother-earth  3delded  pure 
perfect  magnet  up  into  her  composition.  Shrewd 
Nature,  never  to  be  cheated  out  of  her  control  over 
her  children,  held  back  her  gold,  her  gems,  her  sil- 
ver, and  her  fine,  dumb  pearl,  and  wrought  into 
Avis  just  the  one  thing  more  precious  than  they  all. 

People,  to  be  sure,  were  artificially  magnetized  to 
a  certain  extent.  Barbara  Allen,  for  instance,  turn- 
ing the  exact  intellectual  pose  of  her  head  (there 
was  but  one  intellectual  pose  to  Barbara's  head) 
towards  Philip  Ostrander,  while  he  read  his  paper 
on  Spenserian  metres,  was  a  species  of  electro- 
magnet. 

But  Avis  was,  without  alloy,  loadstone.  In 
Avis  there  existed  that  attribute  —  no,  that  quality  ; 
which  was  it  ?  Coy  remembered  hearing  one  of  the 
Professors  say  at  a  supper  that  there  was  a  difference 
between  these  two  things ;  but  she  did  not  remem- 
ber which  was  which :  she  seldom  did.  At  all 
events,  Avis  had  that  one  particular  coloring  about 
her  (Coy  decided  to  call  it  coloring),  which  is,  in  a 
woman,  powerful  above  all  beaut}r,  wit,  or  genius,  — 
that  subtile  something  which  we  name  charm. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  11 

Now,  it  was  true  and  tender  in  Coy  to  sit  thinking 
this  about  Avis.  That  was  a  wise  word  which  said, 
that,  when  we  have  ceased  to  enjoy  the  superiority  of 
another,  we  have  ceased  to  love  him.  Hence  it  may 
be  the  self-defensive  strategy  of  affection,  that  we 
feel  our  friend's  advantage  long  before  we  allow 
ourselves  to  perceive  it ;  nay,  in  proportion  to  the 
depth  of  our  feeling  under  it,  are  we  not  apt  to 
have  a  frost-bite  of  the  intellect,  which  makes  its 
distinct  acknowledgment  a  matter  of  hard  thawing  ? 
And  Coy  was  not  by  any  means  a  girl  of  liquid 
moods.  She  sometimes  felt  it  proper  to  judge  Avis 
very  severely  ;  else  what  was  the  use  in  having  grown 
up  with  her? 

For  instance,  she  had  reproved  her  for  staying 
so  much  by  herself  since  she  had  come  home.  Bar- 
bara, now,  thought  that  affectation,  it  was  plain  to 
see  (and  affectation  it  would  have  been  in  Barbara) , 
though,  of  course,  she  was  too  well  bred  to  say  so. 
Coy  knew  better  than  that.  It  was  only  morbidness. 
Coy  had  the  glibness  of  most  unaccentuated  natures 
in  the  use  of  this  convenient  word,  which  is  with- 
out a  rival  in  its  adaptability  to  cover  all  forms  of 
character  differing  from  one's  own. 

There  had  been  a  ripple  of  surprise  when  Avis 
came  into  the  club  that  night.  The  club  met  at 
Chatty  Hogarth's.  Chatty  was  the  president's 
daughter,  and  an  invalid.  Avis  did  not  like  to 
refuse  poor  Chatty.  It  was  the  first  time  that  Miss 
Dobell  had  appeared  in  Harmouth  society  since  her 
return  from  Florence. 


12  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

At  this  rate,  it  was  plain  that  Miss  Cora  Bishop's 
Spenserian  culture  would  be  very  deficient.  Coy, 
with  a  pretty  change  of  mental  attitude,  which  had 
a  pretty  bodily  expression  down  to  the  very  tips  of 
her  fingers,  tightening,  like  growing  shells,  about  the 
covers  of  her  book,  brought  her  intellect  to  bear 
severely  upon  the  business  of  the  evening. 

"  But  fly,  ah !  fly  far  hence  away,  for  feare 
Lest  to  you  hap  that  happened  to  me  heare." 

A  low  and  singularly  musical  voice  was  pronoun- 
cing these  words  as  Coy  looked  up  ;  not  the  catarrh- 
al  theologue,  surely?  He  had  finished  his  contri- 
bution to  the  evening's  entertainment,  thank  the 
Muses!  and  Mr.  Ostrander  was  reading, — Philip 
Ostrander,  the  new  tutor.  There  was  always  a  new 
tutor  to  be  considered  in  Harmouth  University :  he 
had  not  always,  however,  a  musical  voice. 

"  And  to  this  wretched  lady,  my  deare  love ; 
O  too  deare  love,  —  love  bought  with  death  too  deare  I " 

Clearly  Mr.  Ostrander  was  an  effective  reader ; 
"a  cultivated  reader,"  Coy  said.  Miss  Dobell,  from 
her  corner  opposite  the  gentleman,  sitting  a  little  in 
the  shadow,  and  giving  equable  and  earnest  atten- 
tion to  the  performance  of  each  member  of  the  Poetry 
Club,  in  turn,  said  only,  "  an  effective  reader,"  but 
hesitated  at  the  word,  and  listened  thoughtfully. 

"  With  sudden  feare  her  pitcher  downe  she  threw, 
And  fled  away," 

Bang  on  the  reader. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  13 

"Full  fast  she  fled,  ne  ever  lookt  behynd, 
As  if  her  life  upon  the  wager  lay." 

Musical  was  the  word  assuredly.  Mr.  Ostrander's 
voice  held  rather  melody  than  harmony,  but  music, 
beyond  a  question.  There  was  a  modesty  and  sim- 
plicity about  its  accent  not  common  to  young  men 
in  those  stages  of  growth  in  which  Harmouth  knew 
them ;  perhaps  a  little  uncommon  in  any  young 
man.  It  suffused  a  penetrative  sense  of  pleasure, 
of  unexplained  organic  joy,  like  that  of  Nature  in 
her  simpler  moods  :  it  had  an  effect  not  unlike  that 
of  an  unseen  brook  or  a  flying  bird.  Though  the 
brook  chanted,  it  ran ;  though  the  bird  sang,  it 
flew ;  its  sweetness  was  measured  by  its  evanes- 
cence. People  often  noted  Mr.  Ostrander's  voice. 
Young  ladies  had  been  heard  to  declare  that  it  was 
"like  Mozart." 

Avis  Dobell,  sitting  in  the  shadowed  corner  of  the 
president's  parlor  that  night,  had  happened  to  place 
herself  against  some  very  heavy  drapery,  which 
clasped  two  warm  arms  of  intense  color  across  the 
chill  of  a  bay-window.  The  color  was  that  called 
variously  and  lawlessly  by  upholsterers  cranberry, 
garnet,  or  ponso  ;  known  to  artists  as  carmine.  The 
material  held  a  satin  thread,  which  lent  to  the  cur- 
tains the  lustre  of  jewels  in  a  dark  setting,  or  of  water 
under  a  flaming  sky.  In  the  gaslight  and  firelight 
of  the  room,  the  insensate  piece  of  cloth  took  on  a 
strange  and  vivid  life,  and  seemed  to  throb  as  if  it 
held  some  inarticulate  passion,  like  that  of  a  subject 
soul. 


14  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Coy  or  Barbara  would  have  kiiown  better  than  to 
have  ventured  their  complexions  against  this  trying 
background.  Avis  went  to  it  as  straight  as  a  bird 
to  a  lighthouse  on  a  dark  night.  She  would  have 
beaten  herself  against  that  color,  like  those  very 
birds  against  the  glowing  glass,  and  been  happy,  even 
if  she  had  beaten  her  soul  out  with  it  as  they  did. 

She  had  a  fierce  kinship  in  her  for  that  color,  of 
which  she  seldom  spoke.  She  did  not  expect  it  to  be 
understood  ;  she  did  not  care  that  it  should  be  ;  per- 
haps she  imperfectly  understood  it  herself :  she  only 
knew  that  it  made  her  happy  to  be  near  it.  To- 
night, for  instance,  though  she  had  felt  this  Poetry 
Club  rather  a  bore,  a  positive  wave  of  pleasure 
flowed  to  her  from  the  sight  and  contact  of  that 
curtain,  which  she  felt  in  every  sense  of  soul  and 
body. 

Avis  was  affected  by  color  as  the  more  sensitive 
musical  temperament  is  by  sound.  Color  divorced 
from  form,  crude  and  clear,  was  to  her  what  the 
musical  notation  is  to  the  composer,  who,  without 
striking  a  note,  reads  the  score  by  the  hour  as  other 
men  read  printed  text. 

Besides,  she  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  curtain 
became  her. 

Against  this  background  of  the  passion  of  car- 
mine, Avis,  sitting  silently  the  evening  through,  had 
a  solitary  look.  There  was  a  certain  aloofness  in 
her  very  beauty,  if  one  chose  to  call  by  the  name 
of  beauty  the  kindling  of  her  face  :  it  was  somehow 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  15 

unlike  that  of  other  handsome  women.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  she  was  quite  without  consciousness  of 
it ;  no  woman  could  have  been :  it  might  be  rather 
that  she  made  no  effort  to  appear  unconscious  of  it. 
SI ic  had  nothing  of  that  wide-eyed,  infantile  look  of 
distraction,  which,  in  a  grown  woman,  indicates  the 
very  quintessence  of  egoism. 

She  carried  about  her  an  indefinable  air  of  having 
been  used  to  the  love,  or  admiration  probably,  of  men 
.as  well  as  women,  which  the  most  exquisitely  modest 
women  will  sometimes  wear,  and  which  is  as  unmis- 
takable as  it  is  alluring  to  the  eye.  Her  dress,  made 
in  the  fashion  of  the  time,  fitting  closely,  and  without 
trimming,  was  of  a  negative  tint,  something  toning 
upon  black,  else  she  should  not,  and  so  would  not, 
have  sat  by  the  carmine  curtain.  She  wore,  as  all 
well-dressed  women  wore  at  that  time,  a  very  full 
white  undersleeve,  which  completely  concealed  the 
outline  of  the  arm.  Over  her  shoulders  a  shawl  of 
Fayal  lace,  white,  and  very  delicate,  hung  like  a 
thistle-down.  She  had  a  fresh  but  fine  and  restless 
color,  and  brown,  abundant  hair.  She  had  a  gener- 
ous mouth  and  a  delicate  ear.  Her  profile,  when  the 
carmine  curtain  took  it,  had  the  harmony  of  a  strong 
antique. 

"•Avis,"  said  Mrs.  Hogarth,  when  Mr.  Ostrander 
had  finished  his  canto,  and  the  little  party  of  young 
people  had  fallen  into  that  general  discussion  of  the 
topic  of  the  evening's  stud}^,  which  was  usual  in 
Harmouth  "  Clubs,"  —  "  Avis,  my  dear,  are  we  to 
hear  nothing  from  you  to-night  ?  ' ' 


16  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Oh,  yes,  Avis !  "  urged  Chatty. 

u  You  must  excuse  me,"  pleaded  Avis  in  a  voice 
more  timid  than  one  would  have  looked  to  hear  from 
a  young  lady  of  so  much  presence.  She  spoke 
faintty,  like  a  shrinking  child :  indeed  it  made  her 
feel  like  one,  coming,  from  the  strange  changes  of 
her  life,  suddenly  back  here  among  her  old  pla3^fel- 
lows ;  being  called  out  by  Mrs.  Hogarth  so,  as  if 
she  were  to  recite  a  lesson.  Mrs.  Hogarth  was  one 
of  those  people  who  always  made  her  feel  as  if  she 
were  a  little  girl,  always  would  :  it  would  not  matter 
to  Mrs.  Hogarth  if  she  had  painted  the  Sistine 
Mary. 

There  were  others,  however,  in  the  Spenser  Club, 
strangers,  across  whom  stirred  a  visible  wave  of 
interest  when  Avis,  speaking  for  the  first  time, 
drew  all  the  eyes  in  the  room  towards  the  carmine 
curtain.  Coy  remarked  it,  and  felt  proud  of  her ; 
for  Avis  had  got  into  the  newspapers.  It  was  seldom 
that  a  Harmouth  woman  got  into  the  papers.  It  was 
only  men  —  men  at  Harmouth :  indeed,  the  Univer- 
sity existed,  she  supposed,  for  the  glorification  of 
men.  This  was  all  right  and  proper.  Coy  had  never 
been  conscious  of  any  depressing  aspirations  towards 
the  college  diploma ;  but  she  took  an  aromatic  en- 
jo}Tnent,  after  all,  in  the  fact  that  one  of  the  pro- 
fessor's daughters  had  adopted  "  a  career."  She 
was  glad  it  was  precisely  Avis,  and  not  Barbara,  or 
some  of  the  other  girls,  who  had  painted  a  good 
picture,  and  sold  it  in  London.  She  enjoyed  having 


THE   STORY  OF  AVIS.  17 

it  thoroughly  understood  in  Harmouth  that  people 
who  knew  about  such  things  (Coy  was  not  quite  sure 
who ;  but  that  did  not  matter)  had  predicted  a 
"  brilliant  future  "  for  the  modest  young  lady  who 
made  that  picture. 

"May  I  not  be  pardoned,"  repeated  Avis,  "  if  I 
do  not  bring  my  share  of  the  work  to-night?  I 
have  been  busy  in  other  ways  so  long,  it  is  not  pos- 
sible that  I  could  find  an3r  thing  to  say  worth  your 
hearing,  on  a  subject  which  the  rest  of  you  have 
been  stucVpng  all  winter." 

4 '  Avis ! ' '  said  Coy  suddenly  from  across  the 
room,  "  if  I  had  done  a  real  mean  thing,  should  you 
want  to  know  it  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Avis  :  "  if  anybody  I  cared  for  could 
be  mean,  I  should  rather  never  know  it."  She 
spoke  in  the  graceful  surface-tone  through  which  the 
serious  instinct  of  an  earnest  nature  can  no  more 
help  penetrating  than  the  sun  can  help  shining 
through  ornamented  glass. 

"  You  have  turned  over  two  leaves,  Mr.  Ostrand- 
er,"  said  Barbara  Allen,  who  was  looking  up  foot- 
notes with  him.  "And  do  }^ou  incline  to  Upton's 
conjecture?  It  seems  to  me,  if  we  grant  the  Henry 
VIII.  theory,  then  Una  "  — 

"It's  about  Una  that  I've  been  mean,"  said 
Coy  rather  loudly.  "Avis,  I  brought  your  sketch 
of  Una  that  you  gave  me.  I  know  j-ou'll  let  me 
show  it.  You  never  were  a  bit  of  a  shirk,  now, 
Avis ;  and  this  is  just  your  fair  contribution  to  a 
Spenser  evening.  Please,  Avis?  " 


18  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Avis  did  not  please,  that  was  plain  ;  but  she  con- 
sented without  any  fuss ;  and  the  young  people 
gathered  about  Miss  Bishop  to  see  the  sketch. 

It  was  a  sketch  in  charcoal,  strongly  but  not 
roughly  laid  in,  and  preserved  by  a  shellac,  which 
lent  a  soft  color,  like  that  of  a  very  old  print,  to  the 
paper.  It  bore  marks  of  the  artist's  peculiar  style  ; 
for  it  was  already  recognized  in  art-circles  that  Miss 
Dobellhad  "a  style." 

The  sketch  was  expressive  of  the  lines :  — 

"  Ere  long  he  came  where  Una  traveild  slow, 
And  that  champion  wayting  her  besyde. 

.  .     By  his  like-seeming  shield  her  knight  by  name 
Shee  weend  it  was,  and  towards  him  gan  ride: 
Approaching  nigh,  she  wist  it  was  the  same; 
And  with  faire    fearefull    humblesse   towards    him  shee 
came." 

Miss  Dobell's  Una  was  a  spirited  figure  ;  did  not 
ride  the  lion  like  a  donkey,  neither  did  she  pat  him 
like  a  dog,  in  the  approved  manner  :  he  followed  her 
in  a  shadow  almost  as  heavy  as  that  which  hides 
the  Jupiter  in  Correggio's  lo,  —  dark,  vague,  and 
inscrutable  as  fate.  She  had  been  walking  swiftly  : 
the  lethargy  of  collapse  from  motion  had  settled  on 
every  limb.  Arrested  in  the  full  light,  the  woman 
curved  one  fine  hand  inward,  like  a  shell,  as  if  to 
warn  the  creature  back.  It  was  impossible  to  look 
upon  t'lis  woman,  and  not  say,  "  She  sees  the  man 
she  loves."  Her  eyes  leaped  to  him;  her  lips 
leaned  to  him  ;  her  whole  being  gravitated  to  him. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  19 

"Pretty  girl,"  said  John  Rose,  who  dared  say 
any  thing  to  anybody;  and,  besides,  he  used  to 
know  Avis  in  college,  —  "  very  pretty  girl ;  but  how 
she  holds  her  head  !  Put  her  into  a  Harmouth  Sen- 
ior party  now,  she'd  freeze  a  fellow  into  a  sherbet." 

"Was  Una  so  easily  won,  my  dear  ?"  asked 
Mrs.  Hogarth,  with  a  little  matronly  smile. 

"  Easily  won !  "  A  voice  behind  the  young  artist 
repeated  these  words  in  a  protesting  whisper ;  then, 
gathering  distinctness,  said,  — 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Hogarth,  do  you  not  see  ?  Every 
nerve  and  muscle  is  tense  for  flight.  She  will  turn 
and  run  before  that  clumsy  knight  gets  up  to  her 
—  if  she  can." 

Avis,  turning  with  a  grateful  look  to  see  who  had 
interpreted  her  picture,  felt  Coy's  hand  laid  upon 
her  arm. 

"  Avis,  may  I  present  Mr.  Ostrander?  " 

Avis  very  ceremoniously  bowed.  As  she  did  so, 
there  flitted  across  her  eyes,  like  the  shadow  of  an 
unseen  object,  an  expression  which  Coy  found  it  so 
difficult  to  understand,  that  she  even  made  up  her 
mind  to  ask  her  afterwards  if  she  had  objected  to 
the  introduction. 

But  probably  Avis  had  met  far  more  interesting 
men  in  Florence,  where  it  was  understood  that  she 
had  been  much  sought. 

"May  I?"  urged  Ostrander  with  hesitancy, 
putting  out  his  hand  for  the  sketch.  On  the  back 
of  it  was  written,  with  a  brush  dipped  in  a  crimson 
water-color,  these  words,  — 


20  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  She  speakes  no  more 

Of  past :  true  is  that  true  love  hath  no  power 
To  looken  backe;  his  eie  be  fixt  before." 

"I  am  glad  not  to  have  blundered,"  he  said 
simply  in  handing  the  picture  back. 

The  weight  of  talk  had  by  this  time  slipped  from 
the  picture,  and  he  and  the  two  young  ladies  stood 
slightly  apart. 

"  But,  after  all,  you  see,'*  said  the  young  man 
musingly,  "  your  Truth  is  subject  to  Love,  om- 
nipotently subject . ' ' 

"I  am  not  responsible  for  Spenser's  theology," 
said  Avis,  laughing  evasively;  "and  an  artist  has 
such  gloriously  lawless  moods !  Why  should  I 
trouble  myself  to  think  about  Una  every  day?  I 
had  a  pretty  girl  to  draw:  so  I  drew  her.  But 
I  put  the  lion  in,  so  people  shouldn't  make  a  mistake. 
4  It  is  better  to  be  dumb  than  to  be  misunder- 
stood.' " 

"  Who  said  that?  "  asked  Ostrander,  with  a  fine 
smile.  But  he  was  conscious  of  feeling  some  curi- 
osity over  this  superficial  little  speech  of  Miss 
Dobell's.  There  was  not  a  superficial  stroke  in  the 
picture,  —  nor  in  the  speaker,  to  his  mind. 

' '  How  do  you  know  that  I  did  not  say  it  ?  "  re- 
turned the  young  lady. 

"Mr.  Ostrander,"  said  Coy,  "Miss  Hogarth 
wants  you  to  bring  Miss  Dobell  the  oysters.  Do  it 
gracefully.  She'll  sketch  ^ou  while  you  are  gone  !  " 

When  Ostrander  returned,  Coy  had  been  called 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  21 

away,  and  Avis  was  alone.  As  he  handed  her 
plate,  their  eyes  met  in  a  long,  full,  grave  look. 
Avis's  eyes  were  neither  brown  nor  black,  yet  they 
were  very  dark.  One  sometimes  sees  in  the  lining 
of  waves  on  which  the  full  sun  shines,  and  in  whiclr 
the  bright  weeds  are  thick,  a  color  that  resembles 
them. 

Philip  Ostrander  said,  — 

u  I  have  seen  you  before." 

Avis  hesitated :  she  hesitated  perceptibly  before 
she  answered. 

"Yes." 

"  Had  you  forgotten  it?  " 

Now  Ostrander  spoke  with  hesitation :  he  felt  a 
little  alarmed  at  his  own  intrepidity.  This  young 
lad}r  in  the  Fayal  shawl,  with  the  slightly  disturbed 
carriage  to  her  head,  had  suddenly  acquired  through- 
out her  face  and  figure  a  beautiful  protest,  which  he 
felt  it  would  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to 
mistake. 

Should  he  go  on,  or  stop  exactly  where  he  was  ? 
After  a  moment's  silence,  he  said,  with  an  accent  of 
renewed  decision,  — 

"Had  you  forgotten  it?  " 

Avis  lifted  her  eyelids  very  slowly,  and  in  her 
honest,  even  voice,  said,  — 

"  No." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  H. 

"  We  rejoices  in  hunting  Truth  in  company  as  in  hunting  game."  — 
THEMISTIUS. 

"  For  mervaille  of  this  knight  him  to  behold, 
Full  besily  they  waiten,  young  and  old."  —  CHAUCER. 

COY  and  John  Rose  walked  home  together  in  the 
dear,  old,  foolish  country-fashion,  which  Har- 
mouth  was  too  full  of  young  people  to  outgrow. 

It  was  a  night  of  many  stars.  The  two,  as  they 
stepped  out  into  the  April  weather,  in  deference  to 
the  constitution  of  the  Spenser  Club,  at  the  stroke 
of  half-past  ten,  had  involuntarily  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment with  uplifted  faces  in  the  thin,  half-frozen 
snow.  Great  pulses  of  light  beat  before  the  eyes, 
where  stars  that  our  Northern  atmospheres  know 
onty  in  their  happiest  moods,  were  aflame  that  night ; 
and  arteries  of  fire  ran  along  wastes  of  space,  quiv- 
ering as  they  ran :  the  very  ether  in  which  they  hung 
seemed  to  be  crossed  with  fine  lines,  shadow  drawn 
on  shadow,  like  the  nerves  of  a  mute  and  infinite 
organism,  whose  heart  only — beating  somewhere, 
impassioned,  imprisoned — was  hidden  from  the 
sight. 

But  Coy  and  John  Rose  did  not  talk  about  the 
stars  :  it  was  not  their  way.  The  young  man,  if  he 
had  said  any  thing,  would  have  wrenched  a  pun  out 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  23 

of  them  perhaps,  or  propounded  a  conundrum,  for 
no  better  reason  than  that  the  sight  of  them  had 
moved  him.  And  the  first  thing  that  Coy  said 
was, — 

"  Avis  wishes  us  all  in  Guinea. 

"  But  why?" 

"  She  hasn't  seen  so  much  astronomy  since  she 
was  in  Italy.  She  wants  to  be  by  herself,  and  re- 
duce it  to  Prussian  blue  and  Naples  3Tellow.  I  think 
it  must  be  very  uncomfortable  to  be  an  artist. 
You're  always  looking  at  Nature  with  a  professional 
squint :  }'ou  can't  put  yourself  on  any  sort  of  terms 
with  her,  I  should  say,  more  than  a  photographer 
can  with  a  complexion,  or  a  dentist  with  front- 
teeth." 

.  It  was  true  enough,  that  Avis,  coming  out  of  the 
close  room  into  the  freshening  April  night,  had 
thrilled  beneath  the  sudden  throbbing  of  the  stars, 
with  an  impulse  which  those  only  know  whose  life 
in  its  more  poetic  stages  has  been  passed  under  the 
ardors  of  a  Southern  sky.  Some  slight  disturbing 
element  which  had  entered  into  the  evening  for  her, 
served  only  to  make  the  coolness  and  calm  and 
vastness  more  marked  and  reposeful.  She  had 
drawn  a  deep  breath  as  one  does  in  re-adjusting 
one's  self  to  a  momentarily  suspended  action. 
She  would  have  liked  Mr.  Ostrander  better  if  he 
had  not  exclaimed,  "  Almost  Florence!"  as  he 
turned  to  take  Barbara  home.  She  was  glad  it  was 
nobody  but  Barbara's  brother,  poor  fellow !  who  was 


24  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

to  walk  with  her,  and  that  he  did  not  expect  her  to 
talk  about  the  stars,  and  that  Coy  and  John  Rose 
seemed  so  very  comfortable  together  just  in  front  of 
them.  Her  mind  was  pre-occupied  in  ways  to  which 
the  little  inner  life  of  a  Harmouth  reading-club  was 
as  foreign  as — ah,  well !  — as  foreign  as  the  carmine 
curtain  to  the  cold  north  star.  She  felt  no  less 
annoyed  than  perplexed  by  the  slight  pressure  of 
circumstances  which  seemed  to  have  drawn  her 
to-night  into  the  exact  atmosphere  of  that  half- 
expressed  life.  She  longed  for  the  poise  which  soli- 
tude only  can  give,  and  half  wished  that  she  had 
not  invited  Coy  to  spend  the  night  with  her,  and  see 
the  Venetian  views  to-morrow. 

Her  fancy  about  the  curtain  and  the  light-house 
came  before  her  with  a  strange,  pictorial  vividness, 
as  she  walked  on,  talking  common-place  to  Barbara's 
brother. 

Out  bejrond  the  little  sheltered  town  the  great  sea 
swept.  She  could  hear  the  far  beating  of  the  tide 
upon  the  receptive  April  air.  While  the  currents  of 
these  delicate  human  lives  swept  softly  on  in  their 
elected  channels,  long  waves  thundered  against  the 
Harbor  Light.  Miles  away  through  the  night, 
some  homeless  bird  took  wing  for  the  burning  bosom 
of  the  reflector,  and  straight,  straight  —  led  as  un- 
erringly as  instinct  leads,  as  tenderly  as  love  con- 
strains, as  brutally  as  Nature  cheats,  with  a  glad 
fluttering  at  the  delicate  throat,  with  a  trustful  quiver 
of  the  flashing  wings,  like  the  bending  of  a  harebell, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  25 

like  the  breath  of  an  arrow  —  came  swa}rmg ;  was 
tossed,  was  torn,  and  fell. 

She  had  been  out  when  she  was  a  child,  after  many 
a  storm,  and  seen  them  dead  there  by  hundreds  on 
the  rock.  The  light-keeper  gathered  them  up  into  a 
bushel-basket  once,  for  the  scientific  professor. 

They  had  strewn  the  shores  of  her  young  thought 
with  untold  and  ungathered  suffering,  —  those  birds. 
No  one  thing  had  been  more  responsible  for  the 
attack  of  universal  scepticism  which  she  had  success- 
fully weathered  at  eighteen,  in  common  with  the 
existing  senior  class  of  college-boys  in  her  father's 
lecture-room. 

Sometimes  in  Florence,  on  a  radiant  night,  when 
across  the  roofs,  against  the  setting  sun,  the  sparrows 
stood  twittering  in  Italian  (no  New-England  sparrow 
could  have  rehearsed  in  that  accent  if  his  engage- 
ment for  the  season  had  depended  on  it) ,  and  the 
voices  of  children,  whose  parents'  eyes  had  never 
questioned  Fate,  poured  their  pliant  chirrup  into  the 
Arno's  monotone  beyond  the  studio  window,  —  then 
suddenly,  like  a  drop  of  sleet  upon  a  flower,  would 
fall  a  vision  of  the  Harbor  Light  at  home,  and  to- 
wards it,  through  the  freezing  night,  a  bird  fly  to  its 
death. 

She  had  not  thought  about  the  light  before,  since 
she  had  come  home. 

But  Coy  and  John  Rose  were  walking  together 
oeneath  the  April  stars.  They  did  not  talk  of  the 
Spenserian  metres,  nor  the  Uptonian  theory.  They 


26  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

discussed  the  oysters  and  the  last  engagement,  the 
coming  concert  and  the  impending  battle,  the  hazing 
scrape,  and  the  Mission  Sunday  school. 

Then  they  talked  a  little  about  Barbara,  and  a 
little  of  the  new  tutor,  and  then  about  Miss  Dobell, 
and  then  a  little  about  art  and  life,  and  earnestness, 
and  about  a  man's  understanding  himself,  and  about 
the  beauty  of  high  purposes,  and  the  preciousness 
of  sympathy,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  future,  and 
many  other  original  and  impressive  themes.  And 
the  young  man  made  no  conundrums  now,  and  grew 
so  grave,  that  Coy  took  fright,  and  asked  him,  Was 
he  going  on  a  mission?  But  he  answered,  gravely 
still,  Did  she  think  him  fit?  To  which  she  told  him 
promptly,  No ;  that  he  would  set  the  cannibals  to 
making  bad  puns  before  a  week  was  out ;  and  then 
he  said  he  was  afraid  he  should,  and  that  he  must 
be  content  with  some  obscure  position  among  edu- 
cated Americans  who  read  the  charades  in  the  reli- 
gious weeklies  Sunday  mornings.  And  by  that  time 
they  were  at  the  gate  of  Professor  Dobell' s  old- 
fashioned  silent  house,  and  stopped  to  wait  for  Avis. 

"  Poor  Mr.  Allen !  "  said  Coy,  turning  the  curve 
of  her  cheek  in  the  starlight. 

"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  the  young  min- 
ister perversely. 

"  But  Avis  will  never,  never  "  — 

"  I  wouldn't  grant  that  any  woman  I  cared  for 
would  never,  never,  as  long  as  she  allowed  me  upon 
terms  of  friendship  at  all,"  persisted  the  young 
man. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  27 

"But,"  said  Coy  hurriedly,  "Avis  is  not  like 
other  women.  She  never  was." 

"  Then  you  admit "  —  began  John  Rose. 

"  I  admit  that  I'm  cold,  and  here  she  is,"  shiv- 
ered Coy.  Coy  was  half  frightened.  If  Mr.  Rose 
had  said  anymore  about  sympathy  and  friendship 
just  then,  she  would  have  gone  into  the  house  with- 
out waiting  for  Avis.  The  color  had  heightened 
in  her  young  face.  Her  foot  tapped  the  snow 
sharply  in  her  impatience  for  Avis  to  come  up.  It 
seemed  to  her  as  if  she  and  John  Rose,  standing 
there  in  the  professor's  snowjr,  shaded  yard,  had 
been  left  alone,  the  only  two  people  on  the  breathing 
earth. 

"  I  never  saw  a  woman  have  a  latch-key  before," 
said  Coy,  as  the  two  girls,  having  dismissed  their 
escorts,  lest  so  many  voices  should  disturb  the  pro- 
fessor, stood  together  upon  the  door-step. 

"Father  is  in  the  study,"  said  Avis;  "and  I 
begged  aunt  Chlpe  to  go  to  bed ;  and  the  girls  are 
tired,  poor  things !  Why  shouldn't  a  woman  have 
a  latch-key?" 

This  was  one  of  those  propositions  of  which  the 
burden  of  proof  certainly  lies  with  the  negative  ;  and 
Coy  replied  only  by  an  amused  smile  as  they  passed 
into  the  large  and  silent  house.  It  was  lighted  only 
in  the  halls  ;  for  aunt  Chloe  was  of  an  economical, 
old-fashioned  temper,  and  thought  it  rather  snobbish 
to  waste  good  kerosene,  when  there  was  not  brandy 
enough  for  the  soldiers  in  the  hospitals.  Aunt  Chloe 


28  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

had  attacks  of  benevolent  parsimony  very  peculiar 
to  herself.  When  these  overtook  her,  she  resolutely 
denied  herself  her  cup  of  Oolong  tea  at  night  for 
months  at  a  time,  and  relinquished  butter  on  her 
buckwheats  of  a  morning.  It  was  never  quite  clear 
to  the  rest  of  the  family  exactly  how  the  United- 
States  army  was  the  better  for  that  tea  or  butter. 

' '  But  aunt  Chloe  has  that  sense  of  superior  per- 
sonal sacrifice,  which  is  the  most  useful  element  in 
our  charities,  beyond  doubt,"  laughed  Avis,  as  she 
and  Coy  went  directly  to  her  own  room,  treading 
softly  past  the  study-door. 

It  was  abundantly  light  and  warm  in  Avis's  room. 
The  fire  was  in  the  grate  ;  the  curtains  were  drawn ; 
Avis's  easy-chair  and  slippers  were  before  the  hearth. 
It  was  a  plain,  rather  a  grave  place,  that  little  bed- 
room ;  would  have  been  prim  with  Avis  out  of  it ; 
such  a  room  one  would  look  for  in  a  house  of  which 
Professor  DobelTs  sister  had  been  the  mistress  for 
eighteen  years.  Aunt  Chloe  believed  in  good  blan- 
kets and  towels,  and  a  plenty  of  them ;  and,  when 
you  bought  a  piece  of  furniture,  bu}'  "the  real" 
always  ;  but,  as  long  as  there  were  home  missionary 
boxes  to  be  made  up  spring  and  fall,  she  could  not 
see  that  the  New  Testament  recommended  a  fashion 
in  carpets,  or  that  St.  Paul  could  possibly  have  been 
sensitive  to  any  lack  of  harmony  in  upholstery  or 
mantel  ornaments.  There  was  one  fine  bit  of  marble, 
—  the  Melian  Venus.  This,  with  the  few  foreign 
trinkets  and  engravings  which  Avis  had  scattered 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  29 

about  the  room,  seemed  to  be  there  only  by  tolerance, 
till  she  herself  came  into  it.  Then  a  fair  congruous- 
ness  settled  upon  the  air.  Every  thread  of  color 
left  in  the  old  rug,  and  antiquated  chintz,  and  faint 
wall-paper,  seemed  to  shake  itself,  and  begin  to 
shine.  The  firelight  leaped  to  her  feet  like  a  lover. 
All  the  room  budded  and  opened  like  a  flower  about 
her,  as  the  two  girls  threw  themselves  in  lithe  atti- 
tudes upon  the  old  rug  to  "  toast  their  feet "  like 
children  at  the  fire. 

I  find  that  I  am  talking  rather  lawlessly  about 
these  ' '  girls. ' '  Avis  Dobell  was  a  woman  of  twenty- 
six,  and  Coy  not  many  years  the  younger.  But 
they  were  girls  still  to  each  other  by  that  pretty  trick 
of  speech  and  fancy  common  in  the  comradeship  of 
all  women  before  marriage.  Sometimes  we  find  it  in 
our  way  to  smile  at  this  illusion ;  but,  like  all  illu- 
sions, its  pathetic  side  is  its  deepest  and  its  truest 
one.  Within  the  soul  of  every  unwon  woman  abides 
eternal  youth.  Though  the  snow  be  on  her  hair  before 
the  King  may  claim  her,  yet  shall  he  not  find  violets 
and  the  birds  of  spring,  when  at  last,  at  last,  his 
coming  feet  shine  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  of  her 
ungarnered  heart  ? 

It  was  quite  the  proper  thing  in  Harmouth,  as  I 
have  intimated,  for  young  ladies  to  be  somewhat 
seriously  intelligent ;  and  so  when  Avis  had  got  her 
long  hair  down  over  her  white  merino  wrapper,  and 
Coy,  with  a  gay  silk  shoulder-robe  thrown  across  her 
night-dress,  was  crimping  her  short  front-locks  be- 
fore the  deepening  fire,  she  began,  — 


30  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  What  do  you  think  about  the  Club,  Avis  ?  " 

"  I  thought  you  called  it  a  Chaucer  Club,"  said 
Avis. 

uOh!  so  it  is,"  said  Coy.  "We've  been  the 
whole  mortal  winter  poking  over  Chaucer.  We  only 
got  into  Spenser  last  week.  For  my  part,  I  hate  him. ' ' 

"Which?" 

"  Why,  Chaucer  !  I  never  did  like  old-fashioned 
poetry,  and  I  never  shall.  I'm  a  terrible  modern, 
Avis.  I  like  Tennyson  and  Whittier  and  Long- 
fellow, and  the  Brownings,  and  so  on.  And  that 
Scotchwoman,  Jean  Ingelow,  cultivates  me  more  than 
two  Spensers.  I've  just  had  to  set  to  on  the  old 
fellow  like  a  Latin  prose-lesson  all  winter.  We've 
really  worked  very  hard,"  said  Coy,  with  a  sense  of 
high  literary  virtue.  "I  never  worked  so  hard  in 
a  club  in  my  life.  That  is  Mr.  Ostrander's  doing. 
They  say  he's  very  talented.  But,  then,  talented 
tutors  are  so  common  in  Harmouth !  I  wonder  we 
don't  hear  more  of  them  afterwards,  don't  you?" 

Coy  wound  her  small  fingers  in  and  out  of  her 
crimping-pins  with  a  sinuous  motion ;  her  two  lifted 
bare  arms  enclosing  a  face  as  innocent  of  sarcasm 
as  a  mocking-bird's.  Coy  was  one  of  the  immortal 
few  who  can  look  pretty  in  their  crimping-pins. 

"  I  suppose  you've  gone  on  having  clubs,"  mused 
Avis,  leaning  her  head  back  against  the  seat  of  the 
easy-chair,  and  clasping  both  arms  above  it,  "  every 
winter,  just  as  we  did  when  we  were  girls." 

"  Just  the  same,"  said  Coy,  "  as  we  did  when  you 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  31 

were  at  home  six  years  ago.  You  know  how  it  is 
with  people :  some  take  to  zoology,  and  some  take 
to  religion.  That's  the  way  it  is  with  places.  It 
may  be  the  Lancers  ;  and  it  may  be  prayer-meetings. 
Once  I  went  to  see  my  grandmother  in  the  country, 
and  everj'body  had  a  cand}*-pull :  there  were  twenty- 
five  candy-pulls  and  taffy-bakes  in  that  town  that 
winter.  John  Rose  says,  in  the  Connecticut  Valley, 
where  he  came  from,  it  was  missionary  barrels  ;  and 
I  heard  of  a  place  where  it  was  cold  coffee.  In  Har- 
mouth,  it's  improving  your  mind.  It  comes  hard  on 
me,"  said  Coy  plaintively.  "It  comes  rather  hard 
on  me.  Generally  I  have  an  intellectual  conviction 
that  I  ought  to  improve  my  mind.  But  nothing 
comes  of  it,  you  know,  till  there's  a  club.  Then 
I  groan ;  but  I  go  in  for  it  hardest  of  them  all. 
Improving  your  mind  is  as  bad  as  old  poetiy.  I 
don't  take  to  it,"  said  Coy  mournfully.  "I  ought 
never  to  have  been  born  in  Harmouth.  If  I'd  been 
just  a  downright  society  girl  now,  I  could  have  been 
a  dunce,  and  nobod}^  ever  have  known  the  difference  : 
I  know  I  could.  But  the  amount  I've  read  this  last 
four  3'ears  !  It  positively  makes  my  head  swim  to 
think  of  the  titles  of  the  books.  And,  strictly  speak- 
ing, I'm  not  in  the  Faculty  either,  you  know,  Avis  ; 
for  father  resigned  when  I  was  —  Why?  it  was 
the  j^ear  I  was  going  on  with  Jim  Snowe  :  I  couldn't 
have  been  fourteen.  I  wish,  when  he  took  to  patent- 
ing his  discoveries,  he  had  taken  me  with  him.  I 
think  I  could  have  patented  a  crimper  that  would 


32  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

make  a  simpler  system  of  punctuation  in  your  finger 
than  this." 

"  And  so,"  added  Coy,  turning  one  bare  foot 
slowly  around  from  side  to  side,  before  the  deep-red 
fire,  as  if  she  were  baking  an  exquisite  bit  of  porce- 
lain, "  and  so  we  run  to  reading-clubs  ;  and  we  all 
go  fierce  winter  after  winter  to  see  who'll  get  the 
1  severest.'  There's  a  set  outside  of  the  Faculty 
that  descend  to  charades  and  music  and  inconceiva- 
bly low  intellectual  depths ;  and  some  of  our  girls 
sneak  off,  and  get  in  there  once  in  a  while,  like  the 
little  girl  that  wanted  to  go  from  heaven  to  hell  to 
play  Saturday  afternoons,  just  as  you  and  I  used  to 
do,  Avis,  when  we  dared.  But  I  find  I've  got 
too  old  for  that,"  said  Coy  sadly.  "When  you're 
fairly  past  the  college-boys,  and  as  far  along  as  the 
law-students"  — 

"  Or  the  theologues?  "  interposed  Avis. 

"  Yes,  or  the  theologues,  or  even  the  medical  de- 
partment ;  then  there  positively  is  nothing  for  it  but 
to  improve  your  mind." 

Coy  pathetically  turned  the  other  foot  to  the  fire, 
and  watched  it  with  an  attentive  air,  as  if  there  were 
danger  of  its  being  overdone. 

"  And  so  we  have  the  clubs.  Sometimes  it's  old 
poets  served  hot,  and  sometimes  it's  plain  history  cut 
cold,  and  it  may  be  a  hash  of  the  fine  arts,  or  even 
a  ragout  of  well-spiced  science.  One  winter  it  was 
political  economy.  I  had  my  first  gray  hairs  that 
winter.  But  the  season  we  took  the  positive  philoso- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  33 

phy,  they  thought  I  was  going  into  a  decline.  And 
we  all  fight,  to  begin  with,  in  the  politest  possible 
way,  every  year,  as  to  who  shall  be  in,  and  who 
sha'n't,  and  what  we  shall  be  allowed  to  have  for 
supper.  And  the  wrong  people  are  always  let 
in,  and  the  right  ones  are  always  left  out ;  and  we 
have  the  usual  number  of  flirtations,  and  the  usual 
set  of  jokes  ;  and  we  get  off  the  old  one  about  Bar- 
bara Allen's  name  regularly,  for  each  new  club. 
And  there  are  about  so  many  engagements,  and  the 
usual  number  of  offers  ;  and  so  it  goes.  I  think  I 
must  be  growing  old.  I  only  had  two  last  winter." 
Coy  drew  both  feet  back  from  the  ardor  of  the  fire, 
and  folded  them  in  the  plaid-silk  robe.  There  was 
a  silence,  which  she  broke  by  saying,  — 

"  Mr.  Ostrauder  is  tutor  in  Latin." 

"Is  John  Rose  going  to  settle  over  the  Central 
Church?"  asked  Avis. 

"  Probably.     Father  says  he  will  have  the  call." 

"  It  seems  unspeakably  funny  to  me  to  see  John 
turn  into  a  minister,"  said  Avis.  "  He  was  such  a 
little  scapegrace  in  college  !  I  remember  his  telling 
me  he  should  like  to  preach ;  but  it  would  never  do, 
he  was  too  fond  of  slang  ;  should  say,  '  Wot  larks, 
my  brethren !  '  before  the  sermon  was  over." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Well,  he's  got  past  that,"  said  Coy. 
"  He's  very  good,  I  think  :  he's  a  great  deal  better 
than  I  am.  J'm  not  good  at  all.  But  I  think  my- 
self he'll  make  a  peculiar  minister,  he  is  so  much 
like  other  men.  Did  you  know  there  was  talk  of 


34  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

making  a  professor  of  Mr.  Ostrander?  —  professor 
of  geology." 

"But  I  thought  he  was  teaching  Latin,"  said 
Avis. 

"  So  he  is  ;  but  there's  no  vacancy  in  Latin,  and 
he  is  said  to  have  a  very  versatile  mind.  He  was 
once  educated  in  medicine,  besides.  Father  says  he 
has  a  very  broad  grasp." 

"  I  should  think  so,"  said  Avis,  with  an  inscruta- 
ble look.  "  How  old,  pray,  is  this  Mr.  Ostrander?  " 

"  Oh,  he's  very  old!"  said  Coy:  "he's  almost 
thirty.  He  teaches  German  too,"  she  added  per- 
suasively, after  a  silence.  "  He  has  a  class  of  young 
ladies.  Barbara  is  in  it,  and  I'm  going  to  join  when 
I  get  round  to  it.  I  should  think  you  would  like  to 
go.  What  pretty  arms  you  have,  Avis  !  " 

Avis  had  risen  from  the  old  rug,  untwining  her 
arms  from  the  locked  position  above  her  head,  which 
they  had  steadily  retained  while  Coy  was  talking. 
The  sleeves  of  the  white  wrapper  fell  away  in  the 
abrupt  motion. 

"  They're  not  fat,  like  mine,"  said  Coy,  with  a 
critical  air.  ' '  Did  anybody  ever  tell  you  they  were 
like  the  arms  of  Mme.  Recamier,  in  David's  pic- 
ture?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Avis :  "  I  have  been  told  so.  Let  us 
go  to  sleep  now,  Coy." 

Avis  was  a  light  sleeper,  and  she  lay  long  awake 
that  night,  watching  the  glow  within  the  grate,  and 
listening  to  the  beat  of  the  surf  upon  the  shore,  al- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  35 

most  a  mile  beyond  her  father's  house.  She  lay, 
rather  she  sat,  perfectly  still,  bolstered  against  aunt 
Chloe's  generous  pillows,  with  one  hand  thrust 
through  her  long  hair,  and  her  strong  young  eyes 
fixed  undazzled  upon  the  white-heat  of  the  coals,  till 
it  had  died  to  a  delicate  blush  of  color,  until  the 
blue  ashes  had  crept  like  the  hue  of  death  upon  a 
human  cheek  across  it.  The  window  towards  the 
sea  was  open,  and  the  rhythm  of  the  tide  beat  a 
strange  duet  with  Coy's  gentle,  happy  breathing  on 
the  pillow  at  her  side.  It  seemed  to  her  a  great  song 
without  words,  full  of  uncaptured  meanings,  deep 
with  unuttered  impulse.  She  would  have  liked  to 
fit  expression  to  it ;  but  Avis  never  wrote  u  poetrjV 
never  had,  even  when  she  was  in  her  teens.  That 
was  not  the  baptism  with  which  she  was  baptized. 
Certain  words,  as  sleep  overtook  her,  adjusted  them- 
selves in  a  disjointed  fashion  to  her  thoughts ;  but 
when,  starting,  she  roused  and  wakened,  staring  about 
the  darkening  room,  from  which  even  the  starlight 
was  now  gone,  she  found  that  they  were  only  theae :  — • 

"  Full  fast  shoe  fled,  no  ever  lookd  behynde, 
As  if  her  life  upon  the  wager  lay." 


36  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS, 


CHAPTER  III. 

"  By  nature  a  philosopher,  spirited,  swift,  and  strong."  —  PLATO. 
"Young,  and  a  woman;  'tis  thus  she  was  mine."  —  GOETHE'S  PAN- 
DORA. 

WHEN  Hegel  Dobell,  Professor  of  Ethics  and 
Intellectual  Philosophy,  thirty-five  years  old, 
and  a  bachelor,  brought  home  one  day  to  the  old- 
fashioned  house  set  apart  for  the  incumbents  in  his 
department  a  bride  of  nineteen  New- York  summers, 
all  Harmouth  shook  its  highly  intellectual  head. 

In  the  nature  of  things,  it  was  argued,  a  man  of 
years  and  reputation,  a  man  pre-eminently  a  scholar 
as  well  as  a  student,  a  man  capable  of  writing  the 
celebrated  brochure,  "Was  Fichte  a  Mystic?"  to 
say  nothing  of  the  correspondence  with  the  Berlin 
professor  whose  name  Harmouth  never  could  re- 
member, on  the  subject  Harmouth  always  found  it 
difficult  to  recall ;  even  throwing  out  of  the  question 
the  pamphlet  on  the  c '  Identity  of  Identity  and  Non- 
Identity,"  which  that  other  celebrated  German 
(name  also  gone  for  the  moment)  was  understood 
to  have  discussed  at  one  of  his  Sunday  dinners,  be- 
fore his  mind  gave  way,  —  such  a  man,  it  was 
urged,  must  find  a  slender  stock  of  conjugal  promise 
in  the  choice  of  a  society  girl  known  to  have  been 
gay,  and  understood  to  be  peculiar.  Any  man,  in 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  37 

fact,  filling  the  metaphysical  chair  in  Harmouth 
University,  must  discover  that  he  had  mistaken  the 
premises  of  his  syllogism  in  marrying  a  spoiled 
child,  whose  parents  had  experienced  difficulty  even 
in  restraining  her  within  polite  circles  at  all. 

This  pretty  young  thing,  who  peeped  shyly  as  an 
anemone  out  of  her  stylish  hat  at  the  congregation 
in  the  college  chapel,  looked  demure  enough,  and 
delicate,  as  if  a  waft  of  wind  or  sun  would  wilt  her. 
Yet  it  was  distinctly  understood,  below  the  bated 
breath  of  Harmouth,  that  the  great  professor  had 
won  this  little  lady  but  just  in  time  to  prevent  her 
from  running  away  to  go  upon  the  stage. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  it  was  a  trifle  gossipy  to  call  it 
"running  away;"  and  Harmouth  never  gossiped. 
Miss  Mercy  had  suggested  as  much  as  this,  and  the 
phrase  was  decorously  amended.  Miss  Mercy  was 
a  mild  and  matronly  power  in  Harmouth  always, 
even  before  her  marriage.  In  fact,  Harmouth  had 
privately  selected  her  as  the  proper  Mrs.  Dobell  long 
before  the  New- York  girl  was  met  or  thought  of. 
Was  she  not  a  lacty  of  unexceptionable  antecedents, 
whose  family  had  been  ' '  professional ' '  for  as  many 
generations  as  a  good  American  could  conscientious- 
ly count  at  all?  Could  it  be  denied  that  she  was 
healthy,  handsome,  and  thirty-one?  Could  one  fail 
to  recall  her  marked  (and  lucrative)  success  as  prin- 
cipal of  the  Harmouth  Female  Seminary?  and  if  you 
chose  to  consider  her  known  interest  in  the  university 
scientific  endowments  ?  —  And  where  else  was  there 


38  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

a  woman  who  had  read  the  professor's  lectures  on 
Spinoza  through  ? 

It  was  not  for  a  long  while,  indeed,  not  until  Miss 
Mercy  had  become  the  second  Mrs.  Hogarth,  and 
the  president's  wife  had  avenged  the  spinster,  that 
Hannouth  was  comforted  for  this  highly-educated 
lady. 

But  perhaps  she  was  right.  The  little  bride  had 
not  exactly  run  away.  Yet  there  was  certainly  a 
freak  for  the  stage,  intercepted  somewhere.  And 
clearly  she  was  a  restless,  glittering,  inefficient 
thing,  like  a  humming-bird  turned  radical.  Would 
the  great  professor  bend  his  well-salaried  powers 
happily  now  to  investigating  the  varieties  of  honey 
which  his  quiet  garden-roses  might  have  and  hold 
for  a  petulant  beak  ? 

At  all  events,  it  was  as  clear  as  the  Law  of  Ex- 
cluded Middle,  that  the  great  professor  —  like  any 
small  man  who  delays  marriage  till  he  has  reached 
the  age  when  his  neighbors  should  choose  for  him  — 
had  made  a  serious  blunder. 

The  professor,  however,  like  every  other  genius, 
had  a  touch  of  obstinacy  about  him,  and  persistently 
delaj^ed,  as  time  ran  metaplr^sically  on,  to  discover 
that  he  had  blundered  at  all,  was  an  inexcusably 
tedious  while  in  beginning  to  be  disappointed  in  his 
marriage-venture,  and  ended  by  flatly  refusing  alto- 
gether to  be  miserable.  This  was  an  unscientific 
evolution  from  precedent,  which  tried  Hannouth  to 
the  soul's  depths.  We  can  forgive  our  friend  much. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  3S 

All  true  allegiance  deepens  in  geometrical  proportion 
to  his  deserved  misfortune,  and  a  crime  can  only  test 
the  temper  of  sound  loyalt}^ ;  but  who  can  pardon 
him  for  not  being  unhappy  when  we  have  foretold 
him  that  he  would  be  ? 

If  the  professor's  little  wife  were  a  humming-bird, 
she  was  a  very  tender  and  true  one :  she  loved  the 
great  hand  that  had  lured  her  from  the  fields  on 
which  the  wild  dew  lay,  and  sipped  his  grave  domes- 
tic honey  with  happy,  upturned  look. 

Once  in  a  while,  when  the  professor,  strolling 
about  the  house  in  the  play-hour  which  rigorously 
followed  meals,  saw  through  the  window  Mrs.  Ho- 
garth walking  intelligently  and  plumply  by  upon 
the  president's  arm,  a  fine  scintillant  gleam  of  fun 
twinkled  in  his  deep-set  eyes.  Pie  said  nothing,  — 
he  never  said  any  thing  of  any  matter  which  kindled 
that  rare  spark  under  the  cavern  of  his  brows,  — but 
he  strode  across  the  room  to  where  his  wife  was 
sitting,  pulled  his  nervous  hand  out  of  his  pocket, 
and  bending  his  gaunt,  awkward  shoulders,  gentl}r 
laid  a  finger  under  her  chin,  and  turned  her  young 
face  up  to  his  ;  and  then  she  said,  — 

"  Do  you  want  any  thing,  Professor?  " 

And  then  he  said, — 

"  Only  to  see  if  you  look  happy  and  well,  my 
dear." 

Perhaps  after  that  they  looked  into  one  another's 
eyes  a  moment  with  something  of  the  gravity  which 
is  inseparable  from  all  deep  happiness,  before  she 


40  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

stirred,  and  put  up  both  lithe  arms  to  be  caught,  to 
be  clasped,  to  be  devoured  against  his  he&-rt. 

For  it  was  the  old  imperious  story  that  we  know 
so  well,  —  this  story  of  the  scholar  and  the  woman : 
who  can  explain  the  witchery  by  jvhich  it  pulls  at 
the  heart-strings  of  us  all  ?  As  ah* ve  as  Faust,  as 
old  as  Abelard,  as  tender  as  Petrarch,  as  eternal  as 
Dante,  it  keeps  pace  with  our  calmer  passions  and 
our  serener  time. 

In  the  sweep  of  pre-eminently  well-regulated  af- 
fections that  eddied  through  the  real  life  of  that 
decorous  university  town,  there  was  probably  none 
more  constraining,  there  certainly  was  none  more 
controlling,  than  the  love  which  had  settled  upon 
the  quiet  home  where  the  rebellious  little  society 
girl  had  passed  her  honeymoon,  and  begun  to  ex- 
tract from  joy  the  elements  of  rest. 

It  was  the  same  old  intense,  delirious  story, — the 
overwrought  mind  captured  by  the  unused  heart, 
the  monarch  will  bent  to  the  subject  emotion,  the 
great  purpose  gone  suppliant  to  the  great  passion, 
—  a  wise  man  become  as  a  fool  for  a  pair  of  velvet 
arms ;  and  the  author  of  the  Identity  of  Identity 
and  Non-Identity  was  the  elected  priest  or  victim  of 
the  ancient  and  honorable  experience. 

That  was  as  one  chose  to  look  at  it.  Harmouth 
might  call  him  a  victim  ;  but,  in  the  glamour  of  his  own 
vision,  he  was  the  awed  priest  chosen  for  an  imposing 
and  sacred  service. 

No  college-boy  in  his  class-room,  struggling  with 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  41 

his  first  fancy,  struck  wilder  currents  than  this  grave 
man  in  his  late,  impetuous  love.  There  was  no  girl, 
dreaming  with  shy  eyes  in  the  twilight  before  a  folded 
and  glorified  ideal,  who  had  a  simpler  or  more  ro- 
mantic faith  in  it  than  the  metaphysician  held  in  his. 
In  his  pure  and  studious  life  Hegel  Dobell  had  been 
blessed  above  his  own  deeming  or  dreaming  in  this, — • 
that  he  had  never  spent  his  nature  upon  unworthy,  or 
even  mixed  or  insufficient  feeling.  The  great  passion 
of  his  life  was  one  with  its  great  love.  The  forces  of 
both  overtook  him  with  the  swiftness  of  a  freshet. 
He  yielded  to  the  torrent  with  the  childlike  and 
ecstatic  surprise  that  he  would  have  felt  at  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  axiom. 

It  was  Eden  in  the  old-fashioned  house  ;  and  the 
tremulous  amazement  of  the  first  man  and  the  first 
woman  filled  it.  To  them  was  given  dominion  over 
a  world  as  unreal  to  souls  incapable  of  sublimation 
by  a  great  love,  as  the  Paradise  of  Milton,  or  the 
Palace  of  Kubla  Khan. 

They  were  not  of  dull  fancy,  after  all,  who  nick- 
named the  professor's  wife.  There  was  something 
bird -like  in  her  ;  in  her  buoyant  attitudes,  in  a  way 
she  had  of  turning  her  head  sidewise  to  look  at  her 
husband  as  she  perched  upon  the  arm  of  his  chair, 
in  the  cooing  tones  of  her  clear  but  uninsistent  voice, 
and  especially  in  a  certain  reserve  that  was  very 
marked  in  her. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  a  bird  as  rather  an  open- 
hearted,  impetuous  creature,  telling  all  she  knows, 


42  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

pouring  out  her  private  affairs  to  the  whole  world's 
hearing  by  simple  force  of  her  nature.  In  fact,  per- 
haps no  creature  is  more  capable  of  concealment. 
Naturalists  load  us  with  stories  of  her  little  strata- 
gems. "We  have  but  to  look  intently  in  her  eye  to  be 
made  conscious  that  she  has  her  mental  reservations 
about  many  matters ;  in  particular,  opinions  about 
ourselves,  which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  explain. 

The  robin  at  your  door  on  a  June  morning  seems 
to  be  expressing  himself  with  lavish  confidence ; 
but,  to  a  patient  listener,  his  song  has  something  of 
the  exuberant  frankness  which  is  the  most  impene- 
trable disguise  in  the  world.  The  sparrow  on  her 
nest  under  }~our  terrace  broods  meekly;  but  the 
centuries  have  not  wrung  from  one  such  pretty  pris- 
oner a  breath  of  longing  for  the  freedom  of  the 
summer-day.  Do  her  delicate,  cramped  muscles 
ache  for  flight?  her  fleet,  unused  wings  tremble 
against  the  long  roots  of  the  overhanging  grass? 
She  turns  her  soft  eye  upon  you  with  a  fine,  far 
sarcasm.  You  may  find  out  if  you  can. 

It  was  in  memory,  perhaps,  of  some  of  the  sweet 
nonsense  of  her  honeymoon,  that  Mrs.  Dobell  had 
selected  for  her  little  daughter  the  name  of  Avis. 

"Mamma,"  said  the  child  one  day,  not  coming 
to  her  mother's  knee,  but  sitting  in  the  sunlight  at 
some  distance  from  her  on  the  floor,  "  what  shall  I 
be?" 

"  What  shall  you  be,  Avis?  " 

"  Drayton  Allen  is  going  to' keep  a  dog-store ;  and 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  43 

Ben  Hogarth  is  going  to  be  president  of  some  col- 
lege. What  shall  /be?" 

"  What  will  Coy  be,  my  dear,  and  Barbara?  " 

"  Coy  is  going  to  be  a  lady,  she  says,  mamma." 

"  Very  well,"  said  mamma. 

"  And  Barbara  is  going  to  get  married." 

Mamma  made  no  reply. 

"  I  think  I'd  rather  keep  dogs,"  said  Avis  grave- 
ly, after  a  silence.  After  some  moments,  receiving 
still  no  answer,  the  child  rose  to  her  feet,  pushing 
back  her  thick  hair  from  her  eyes,  starveling  in  the 
full  sun. 

"  Mamma,  did  you  run  away?  " 


"  Barbara  says  you  ran  away.  She  says  j^ou  ran 
away  in  a  stage." 

"  Barbara  told  you  a  very  wrong  story,  my  child. 
Come  here." 

Avis  threw  down  her  plaj'things,  and  went  slowly 
to  her  mother's  knee.  The  mother  put  her  arm  ex- 
pressively about  the  child  ;  but  still  she  did  not 


44  Mamma,"  began  the  little  girl  again,  "  I  have 
never  seen  anybody  in  a  theatre." 

"  Some  day  you  shall,  when  it  is  right  and  best." 

"  Mamma,"  slowly  after  a  pause,  "  did  you  ever 
want  to  keep  dogs?  " 

"  Not  exactly,  Avis." 

"I  thought  not.  You  know  you  didn't  like  that 
dog  I  had  who  drowned  himself.  Now,  what  I'd 


44  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS 

like  to  know  is  this :  if  you  wanted  to  keep  thea- 
tres, why  didn't  you?  " 

Mrs.  Dobell,  with  some  signs  of  agitation,  laid 
aside  her  sewing,  and  drew  her  little  daughter  upon 
her  lap.  She  looked  into  A  vis's  eyes  for  a  long 
moment,  with  that  instinctive  assurance  of  sympa- 
thy and  impulse  of  confidence,  which,  from  the  hour 
when  the  baby's  face  is  first  upturned  to  hers,  a 
mother  feels  at  times  in  the  presence  of  a  woman- 
child. 

"  Avis,"  she  said  gravely,  "  I  married  your  papa : 
that  is  why  I  never  acted  in  the  theatre." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Well,  I  didn't  know.  Did  you  never 
want  to  run  away  after  you  had  married  papa  ?  Did 
you  never  care  about  the  theatre  again?  Mamma, 
what  is  the  matter ?  Are  you  cold?  I  don't  want 
to  go  away  and  play.  I  haven't  talked  enough.  I 
had  a  great  many  questions  to  ask  you.  I  like  you 
better  than  I  do  Barbara's  mother.  You're  so  much 
prettier,  mamma." 

But  long  after  that,  after  her  pretty  mother  had 
become  a  thin,  sweet  vision,  like  a  fading  sketch  to 
the  young  girl's  heart,  she  recalled  with  incisive 
distinctness  the  way  in  which  she  had  been  put 
down  from  her  mother's  knee  that  morning,  then 
impulsively  recalled,  snatched,  kissed,  and  cried 
over  with  a  gush  of  incoherent  words  and  scalding 
tears.  She  never  saw  her  mother  cry  before  or  after 
that.  But  all  that  she  could  understand  of  what 
she  said  was,  — 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  45 

"  Oh,  my  little  woman !  Mother's  little  woman, 
little  woman  !  ' ' 

This  glimpse  into  her  mother's  heart,  the  child, 
held  by  some  blind  and  delicate  sense  of  honor, 
never  shared  with  any  other  human  eyes.  When 
she  was  herself  a  woman  grown,  and  not  till  then, 
she  asked  her  father  once,  if  he  supposed  her  mother 
to  have  possessed  genuine  dramatic  talent. 

"  Unquestionably,"  said  the  professor,  lifting  his 
head.  "  My  wife  was  not  like  most  women,  given 
to  magnifjing  every  little  aesthetic  taste  into  an 
unappreciated  genius.  She  had,  beyond  doubt,  the 
histrionic  gift.  Under  proper  conditions  she  might 
have  become  famous." 

"Why,  then,  should  she  never  have  cultivated 
such  a  gift?  "  ventured  Avis. 

"Because,"  said  the  man  simply,  "she  married 
me." 

"  But  do  you  not  suppose,"  persisted  Avis,  "  that 
in  all  those  years,  shut  up  in  this  quiet  house,  she 
ever  knew  a  restless  longing  in  that  —  in  those — • 
in  such  directions  ? ' ' 

Avis  faltered  beneath  the  old  man's  sharp  and 
sudden  look,  bent  upon  her  in  a  kind  of  deep,  in- 
dignant pity. 

"  Your  mother  was  my  wife,"  he  said  superbly; 
•s  and  my  wife  loved  me." 

One  other  morning  spent  in  the  sunlight  with  her 
mother  became  pictorial  in  Avis' s  memory,  —  one 
other  only ;  and  whether  the  first  threw  the  more 


46  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

powerful  focus  upon  the  last,  or  the  last  against  the 
first,  it  were  difficult  to  say.  Avis  was  nine  years 
old  that  morning.  It  was  winter;  and  her  father 
waked  her  in  the  freezing  dawn,  while  as  yet  only  a 
single  feather  of  gold  flecked  the  east,  where  snow- 
clouds  were  piling  high. 

Her  mother  had  been  ailing,  ill :  none  knew  ex- 
actly why.  It  was  quite  certain  that  she  had  no 
disease ;  only  the  waxing  and  waning  and  wasting 
of  a  fine,  feverish  excitement,  for  which  there  seemed 
to  be  neither  cause  nor  remedy. 

Last  night  they  told  her  she  was  better. 

They  had  called  her  now  in  hot  haste.  Swift  feet 
passed  to  and  fro  across  the  halls  ;  and  voices  broke 
and  whispered  at  the  doors. 

The  child,  in  her  little  night-gown,  pattered  across 
the  entry,  shivering  with  cold  ;  but,  when  her  mother 
asked  her  why  she  cried,  she  said  papa  had  hurt  her 
hand  when  he  took  hold  to  lead  her  in. 

The  light  had  broadened  when  she  climbed  upon 
the  high,  old-fashioned  bed,  and  pulled  aside  the 
clothes  to  get  in  upon  her  mother's  arm.  Some  one 
objected  to  this ;  but  some  one  else  said,  "  Let  the 
child  alone."  The  color  in  the  east  unfolded,  and 
hung  against  the  windows  like  a  wing,  she  thought, 
as  she  lay  down,  and  curled  against  her  mother's 
heart. 

4 '  Mamma,"  began  the  child,  "I  am  sorry  you 
are  sick.  Sha'n't  I  bring  you  a  little  picture  that  I 
drew  last  night?" 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  4? 

But  her  mother  answered  only,  "  There,  my 
daughter  !  Mother  loves  her  ;  there  !  " 

"It  is  a  picture  of  a  bird,  mamma,  with  trees. 
I  thought  you'd  like  to  see  it.  And  —  O  mamma ! 
the  wing !  —  see  the  wing  the  sun  has  made  upon  the 
sky !  It  looks  as  if  it  meant  to  wrap  us,  wrap  us, 
wrap  us  in." 

As  Avis,  leaning  on  one  little  arm,  uttered  these 
words  in  the  dreamy  monotone  of  an  imaginative 
child,  the  sun-burst  broke  full  against  her  face. 

It  was  then  that  there  rang  throughout  the  room  a 
tense  and  awe-struck  cry.  It  was  not  in  any  sense 
a  cry  of  pain ;  rather  surcharged  with  a  burden  of 
wondering  joy.  Then  there  followed  words  resonant 
and  vibrant :  — 

4 '  Under  the  shadow  of  His  wing  shalt  thou 
abide." 

But  when  Avis,  dazzled  by  the  sunrise,  turned  her 
head,  some  one  came  from  behind,  and  swiftly  laid  a 
gentle  hand  across  her  eyes.  And  though  she  begged 
them,  till  the  day  was  dark  again,  to  let  her  go  back, 
just  for  once,  and  hear  mamma  say,  "  Mother  loves 
her,"  none  would  give  her  leave. 

The  professor's  sister  was  a  homeless  widow,  of 
excellent  Vermont  intentions,  and  high  ideals  in  cup- 
cake. In  the  course  of  a  severe  and  simple  life  she 
had  known  one  passion,  and  one  only,  — the  refined 
passion  for  flowers,  which  makes  the  sole  poetry  of 
many  a  plain,  prosaic  story.  She  accepted  her  call- 


48  THE  STORY  OF  AYIS. 

ing  and  election  conscientiously,  when  she  was  sum- 
moned to  that  most  difficult  of  human  tasks,  the 
training  of  another  woman's  child.  When  Hegel's 
letter  came,  beseeching  her  to  bring  the  presence  of 
the  "  ever- womanly  "  into  the  desolated  house  of 
a  heart-broken  man,  she  prayed  over  it  for  a  week. 
And  then  she  spent  another  in  wondering  what  it 
would  be  her  clear  duty  to  do  by  that  child  in  regard 
to  pickles  and  hot  biscuit:  her  poor  mother  had 
never  attended  to  her  diet.  She  held  it  to  be  the  first 
business  of  any  woman  who  undertook  the  manage- 
ment of  a  literary  family,  like  her  brother's,  to  attend 
properly  to  its  digestion.  And  then  she  wrote  her 
brother  simply — saying  nothing  of  either  prayers 
or  pickles  —  that  she  would  come  and  do  the  best 
she  could.  Her  sole  stipulation  was,  that  she  might 
be  allowed  to  bring  her  geraniums. 

Her  best- — to  her  glory  be  it  said,  from  the  day 
when  she  first  unpacked  in  the  professor's  house 
the  rather  rural-looking  trunks,  to  which  Avis's  town- 
bred  sensibility  immediately  objected  —  aunt  Chloe 
faithfully,  evenly,  and  nobly  did ;  and  what  could 
angels  or  mothers  more  ? 

Yet  when  she  had  been  in  her  brother's  family  a 
year,  she  came  to  him  one  day  with  a  sunken  look 
about  the  temples,  —  a  family  look,  indicating  sternly- 
repressed  feeling,  in  which  she  bore  at  times  a  mar- 
vellous likeness  to  the  professor. 

"  Hegel,"  said  the  childless  woman,  with  a  quiver- 
ing lip,  "  I  should  like  to  have  your  little  daughter 
love  me :  but  I'm  afraid  she  never  will." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  49 

"  What's  the  matter  now?"  The  professor 
brought  his  black  brows  together,  looking  up  from 
the  copy  of  Hamilton's  Logic,  in  which  he  was  try- 
ing, with  the  "patience  of  genius,"  to  keep  six 
places  open  witn  five  fingers. 

"  Nothing  very  new,"  sighed  aunt  Chloe.  "  The 
same  old  story.  She  had  to  rip  her  seam  out  in  the 
—  the  undergarments,  and  she  would  not  stir  the 
jelly.  And,  when  I  went  to  ask  her  why  she  had  not 
made  her  bed,  I  found  her  putting  tinfoil  over  the 
medallions  that  you  brought  from  Mantua  ;  making 
impressions  of  them  with  her  finger-nail.  And  the 
noses,  Hegel!  ItVill  displease  you  very  much  to 
see  the  noses.  The  Laocoon  is  as  black  as  the 
register  ;  and  the  Apollo  ' '  — 

The  professor  strode  across  the  room,  and  into 
the  parlor  where  Avis  sat,  deep  in  the  broad  cush- 
ioned window-sill,  with  the  medallions  on  her  lap. 
A  vein  on  the  child's  temple  began  to  throb  as  she 
looked  up. 

"Papa,  I  never  meant  to  hurt  their  noses!  I 
didn't  know  they  were  so  tender,  — just  like  sugar. 
I  wanted  to  make  a  statue  out  of  the  tinfoil.  Poor 
Apollo,  papa  !  He's  just  a  snub." 

Avis  brought  the  medallions  to  him  with  a  swift, 
sweet  gesture  of  appeal,  which  too  frequently  con- 
verted her  clearest  faults  into  her  most  irresistible 
claims  upon  one's  sympathy  ;  or,  as  aunt  Chloe  put 
it,  "turned  her  from  a  sinner  into  a  sufferer"  at 
once. 


50  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"Never  mind  the  noses!"  said  the  professor, 
irritably  tossing  the  medallions  to  one  side.  "  Avis, 
don't  you  love  your  aunt  Chloe?  " 

"  Wiry,  yes  !  ' '  said  Avis,  with  wide  eyes.  "  I  like 
aunt  Chloe.  It  isn't  aunt  Chloe  that  I  hate." 

'"What  do  you  hate?" 

Her  father  looked  at  her  across  the  great  black 
Logic,  as  a  depressed  garrison  might  look  at  the 
progress  of  an  enemy  whose  movements  it  was  ut- 
terly unable  to  forecast. 

"  Aunt  Chloe  says  it's  unladylike  to  hate,"  said 
Avis.  "If  it  is,  then  I'd  rather  not  be  a  lady. 
There  are  other  people  in  the  world  than  ladies. 
And  I  hate  to  make  my  bed  ;  and  I  hate,  hate,  to  sew 
chemises  ;  and  I  hate,  hate,  hate,  to  go  cooking  round 
the  kitchen.  It  makes  a  crawling  down  my  back  to 
sew.  But  the  crawling  comes  from  hating:  the 
more  I  hate,  the  more  I  crawl.  And  mamma  never 
cooked  about  the  kitchen.  I  think  that  is  a  ser- 
vant's work.  I'm  very  ugly  to  aunt  Chloe  some- 
times, papa.  And  then  I'm  sorry.  But  I  don't  tell 
her,  unless  I  think  of  it.  On  the  whole,  papa,"  add- 
ed the  child  gravely,  "I  have  so  many  sorrows  in 
this  world,  that  I  don't  care  to  live." 

"  But,"  said  her  father,  with  rather  a  gymnas- 
tic sternness,  "it  is  shirking  not  to  attend  to  your 
work.  There's  nothing  meaner  than  a  shirk." 

"I'm  not  a  shirk,  papa!  "  cried  Avis,  with  hot, 
indignant  eyes.  "  It  isn't'the  work  I  hate.  I  raked 
up  the  leaves  for  you  last  fall,  and  you  said  I  did 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  51 

it  most  as  well  as  Jacobs.  And  I  go  to  the  post- 
office  every  day.  It's  not  the  working,  but  the 
hating  and  the  crawling,  that  I  mind." 

"  It  is  proper  that  little  girls  should  learn  to  sew 
and  cook,"  said  the  professor  of  intellectual  philoso- 
phy faintly.  He  turned  the  leaves  of  the  Logic ;  he 
groped  blindly  among  the  marginal  annotations.  His 
two  hundred  unruly  boys  in  the  college  class-room 
he  could  manage  ;  but  all  the  wisdom  of  Sir  William 
was  as  the  folly  of  a  fool  to  teach  a  great  man  what 
to  say  to  a  little  girl  who  did  not  like  to  sew. 

There  was  a  vein  of  broad  tolerance  in  Hegel 
Dobell's  sturdy  nature.  He  knew  that  it  would  give 
him  "  a  crawling  "  to  sit  for  fifteen  minutes  at  that 
slow,  nervous,  precise  drawing  in  and  out  of  the 
needle,  at  which  his  little  daughter,  with  flushed 
cheeks  and  twitching  fingers,  sat  by  the  hour  at  a 
time.  "  A  crawling?  "  Call  it  a  brain-fever. 

Yet  it  was  unquestionably  proper  for  all  women, 
certainly  for  all  women  belonging  to  himself,  to  be 
versed  in  those  domestic  accomplishments  to  which 
the  feminine  nature  was  created  to  adjust  itself 
happily  at  some  cost.  So  he  only  said,  — 

"Well,  well,  my  dear;  do  as  aunt  Chloe  bids 
you,  and  hate  as  few  things  as  possible.  And  now, 
if  3^ou  want  to  make  statues,  spare  my  medallions, 
and  put  the  tinfoil  on  your  dolls'  faces  in  the  pla}r- 
room." 

"  My  dolls  !  "  said  Avis.  Her  color  came  swiftly : 
she  lifted  her  little  head  with  the  helpless  look  of 


52  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

one  who  receives  a  perfectly  unavengeable  insult. 
"  Why,  papa  !  I  haven't  had  a  doll  since  long  before 
mamma  died.  You  know  I  buried  my  last  one  under 
the  tool-house,  and  Coy  came  to  the  funeral." 

But  papa  and  Sir  William  the  Wise  were  gone. 

"It  is  an  admitted  principle  in  all  systems  of 
education,"  said  the  professor  plaintively  to  his  sis- 
ter, "  that  some  concession  shall  be  made  to  the 
moulds  of  individuality.  In  point  of  fact,  all  theories 
cool  off  in  such  moulds  at  last.  There  certainly  is 
this  element  of  justice  in  the  electoral  system  which 
is  in  danger  of  becoming  so  threatening  to  our 
universities." 

4 '  Do  you  want  Avis  to  give  up  learning  to  cook  ?  ' ' 
asked  aunt  Chloe,  with  a  puzzled  face. 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  her  father,  retreating 
promptly  and  safely  behind  the  cover  of  the  Logic. 

Aunt  Chloe  sighed.  In  her  heart  she  thought, 
that  if  Avis  failed  in  the  end  to  grow  up  like  other 
girls,  and  be  a  credit  to  her,  it  would  be  owing  chiefly 
to  her  poor  mother's  city-bred,  unthrifty  s}Tstem  of 
allowing  servants  to  manage  their  work  with  so  little 
personal  supervision. 

It  has  been  said  that  every  human  opinion  is 
strong  enough  to  have  had  its  martyrs.  Aunt  Chloe 
would  have  gone  to  the  stake  cheerfully  for  this  con- 
viction. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  53 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"Yet  thoroughly  to  believe  in  one's  own  self, 
So  one's  self  were  thorough,  were  to  do 
Great  things."  —  TENNYSON. 

THE  illuminated  hours  of  life  are  few  ;  but  those 
of  our  first  youth  have  a  piercing  splendor  which 
neither  earlier  nor  later  experience  can  by  any  chance 
absorb.  Avis  was,  perhaps  sixteen,  when  one  of 
these  phosphorescent  hours  flashed  upon  her. 

To  the  day  of  her  death  she  will  recall  the  last 
detail  that  expressed  it  to  her.  As  most  of  us  re- 
vive the  sunrise  of  love,  or  the  first  assault  of  grief, 
it  is  given  to  a  few  to  individualize  the  moment  when 
aspiration  lays  a  coal  of  fire  upon  our  young  dumb 
lips. 

She  was  down  in  her  father's  apple-orchard,  where 
the  low,  outskirting  branches  yield  the  outlook  to  the 
sea.  Between  her  and  the  shore  swept  placidly  the 
expanse  of  the  farm,  for  whose  sake  the  professor 
clung  with  syllogistic  precision  to  the  old-fashioned 
house  so  far  from  the  centre  of  the  town.  The  ripen- 
ing grain  had  a  sinuous,  feminine  motion  under  the 
light  wind.  The  stalks  of  the  young  corn  turned 
their  edges  in  profile  towards  the  sun ;  and  the  short 
silk  hung  like  the  hair  of  babies,  tangled  and  falling : 
it  seemed  to  Avis  that  she  could  see  a  stir  now  and 


54  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

then,  and  tiny  green  hands  put  up  to  push  it  out  of 
winking  eyes.  In  the  meadow  the  long  grass  rioted  ; 
and  black  and  brown  and  yellow  bees  made  love  to 
crimson  clovers.  How  they  blushed !  She  should 
think  they  would.  They  were  too  lavish  of  their 
honey,  those  buxom  clovers,  like  an  untaught  country 
lassie  with  a  kiss.  But  the  daisies  that  skirted  the 
old  gray  stone  walls  —  the  slim,  white  daisies  with 
the  golden  hearts  —  looked  to  the  young  girl's  fancy 
like  the  virgins  in  the  Bible  story,  carrying  each  a 
burning  lamp. 

She  had  climbed  into  the  highest,  airiest  branch  of 
the  highest  tree  in  all  the  orchard,  principal!}7  be- 
cause aunt  Chloe  said  it  was  unladylike  to  climb. 
Any  thing,  every  thing,  that  aunt  Chloe  did  not  want 
her  to  be,  she  would  like  to  become  that  morning. 
It  was  purely  because  all  things  had  gone  narrowly 
wrong  in  doors  that  da}r,  that  she  had  taken  her 
little  blue-and-gold  girls'  copy  of  "  Aurora  Leigh," 
and  rushed  out  fiercely  with  it  into  the  wide  June 
weather.  Because  aunt  Chloe  had  made  her  late 
to  the  drawing-lesson  to  get  that  parlor  swept ;  be- 
cause she  had  been  rude  and  wrong  about  it,  and 
aunt  Chloe  had  been  polite  and  right ;  because  aunt 
Chloe  had  said  she  would  never  grow  gentle  and 
womanly  like  other  girls,  and  she  had  retorted  that 
she  hoped  she  never,  never,  never  should ;  because, 
too,  she  had  told  aunt  Chloe  hotly,  to  that  good 
lady's  extreme  perplexity,  that  "  carpet-dusting, 
though  a  pretty  trade,  was  not  the  imperative  labor 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  55 

after  all"  and  so  had  run  up  to  get  the  poem,  and 
see  in  secret  if  she  had  her  quotation  right,  —  because 
of  all  this,  here  they  were,  she  and  Aurora  together, 
tossing  like  feathers  in  the  apple-bough,  high,  still, 
safe  from  all  the  whole  round,  rasping  world. 

Besides,  aunt  Chloe  never  could  find  her,  and 
would  have  to  make  the  pudding  by  herself. 

So  near  our  pettiest  motives  do  our  largest  in- 
spirations lie ! 

She  had  easily  thrown  off  the  annoyance  of  the 
morning,  with  the  blessed,  elastic  temper  of  her 
young  years ;  flinging  herself  upon  one  elbow,  in 
that  way  of  hers,  pressing  her  fingers  against  her 
temple  and  under  the  girlish  fillet  of  her  closely 
braided  hair,  balancing  herself  dexterously  by  her 
feet  upon  the  tremulous  bough,  and  so  plunged  into 
that  idyl  of  the  June,  that  girls'  gospel,  which  will 
be  great  as  long  as  there  are  girls  in  the  world  to 
think  it  so. 

As  few  poems  are  ever  read,  as  only  an  imagina- 
tive girl  can  read  those  few,  Avis  in  the  apple-bough 
read  on  and  on.  She  had  always  meant  to  take  just 
some  such  June  morning,  and  find  out  to  her  satis- 
faction what  the  woman  really  meant  to  say  who 
wrote  that  book,  but  had  only  nibbled  at  it  hitherto 
indiscriminately,  after  the  manner  of  girls. 

Full  of  the  vague  restlessness  which  possesses  all 
healthy  young  creatures,  and  the  more  definite  hun- 
gers natural  to  a  girl  of  her  temperament,  Avis  was 
ready  to  be  fed  with  any  full,  rich  nutriment  which 
seemed  to  promise  fibrine  to  a  growing  soul. 


56  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

Poison  or  nectar,  brimstone  or  manna,  our  lipa 
slake  at  the  nearest,  be  it  what  it  may,  in  the  crisis 
of  that  fine  fever  which  comes  but  once  in  life. 
Avis  was  not  without  capability  of  relishing  a  certain 
quality  of  poison,  not  too  fully  flavored,  of  prismatic 
tints,  and  in  a  lily's  shape,  like  hyacinths.  But  it 
was  silent  as  a  convent  in  the  apple-boughs ;  the 
growing  day  drew  on  a  solemn  veil  of  light ;  upon 
the  sea  the  steps  of  unseen  sacred  feet  were  stirring 
—  and  so  the  manna  fell. 

I  like  to  think  of  this  young,  thing,  coiled  there, 
like  an  oread,  in  the  apple-tree,  with  the  shadow  of 
a  leaf  set  like  a  seal  upon  her  parted  lips,  and  her 
eyca  leaping  now  and  then,  dumb  prisoners,  from 
her  book  to  the  horizon  of  the  summer  sea ;  her 
heart  arising  with  the  sweet  imperiousness  of  girl- 
hood to  solve  the  problem  of  her  whole  long  life 
before  that  robin  yonder  should  cease  singing,  or  the 
next  wave  break  upon  the  shore,  or  the  lamp  of  one 
of  the  virgin  daisies  go  out  under  the  shadow  of  the 
overflying  cloud  that  swept  across  the  meadow. 

"  The  June  was  in  her,  with  its  nightingales;  " 

and  are  there  not  those  of  us  who  would  yield  our 
lives  to  know  their  Junes  once  more  ? 

Avis,  long  years  after,  used  to  remember  with  a 
positive  thrill  how  she  said  aloud  that  morning, 
throwing  back  her  head,  and  turning  her  eye  through 
the  close  leaves  to  the  vivid  sky,  — 

"  I  am  alive.     What  did  God  mean  by  that?  " 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  57 

And  then  was  frightened  lest  the  very  orioles  should 
understand  her.  It  seemed  to  her  to  be  the  first 
time  that  she  had  ever  really  thought  she  was  alive. 
But  no  one  could  understand  :  no  one  should  under- 
stand. She  sat  up,  and  looked  at  the  birds  with 
her  finger  on  her  lips. 

Despite  our  most  conscientious  endeavor  to  "  go 
on  cutting  bread  and  butter,"  it  is  on  ideals  that 
the  world's  starvation  feeds.  And  to  most  of  us 
who  must  perforce  live  prose,  there  is  a  charm  be- 
yond all  definition  in  the  development  of  a  poetic 
nature.  In  the  budding  of  all  young  gifts,  in  the 
recognition  of  all  high  graces,  in  the  kindling  of  all 
divine  fires,  we  feel  a  generous  glow  upon  our  own 
colder  and  serener  fates,  like  the  presence  of  the  late 
evening  light  upon  a  drift  of  snow.  When  the  pas- 
sion of  our  lives  has  long  since  wasted  into  pathos, 
and  hope  has  shrivelled  to  fit  the  cell  of  care,  we 
lean  with  increasing  ardor  on  the  hearts  of  those  in 
whom  purpose  and  poetry  were  permitted  to  be  one. 

On  Monday  when  the  fire  smokes,  on  Tuesday 
when  the  bills  come  in,  on  "Wednesday  when  the 
children  cry,  it  is  not  more  smoke,  more  debt,  more 
tears,  we  want :  tell  us,  rather,  how  a  statue  grew, 
or  how  a  poem  sprang,  or  how  a  song  was  wrought, 
or  how  a  prayer  conceived. 

Avis  climbed  down  from  the  apple-tree  by  and  by, 
with  eyes  in  which  a  proud  young  purpose  hid.  It 
had  come  to  her  now  —  it  had  all  come  to  her  very 
plainly  —  why  she  was  ah' ve  ;  what  God  meant  by 


58  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

making  her;  what  he  meant  by  her  being  Avis 
Dobell,  and  reading  just  that  thing  that  morning  in 
the  apple-boughs,  with  the  breath  of  June  upon  her, 
—  Avis  Dobell,  who  had  rather  take  her  painting- 
lesson  than  go  to  the  senior  party,  — just  Avis,  not 
Coy,  nor  Barbara. 

She  climbed  down,  and  went  straight  into  the 
house  to  her  father.  The  orioles  looked  kindly 
after  her ;  and  the  maiden  daisies  held  then:  lamps 
aloft  to  light  the  going  of  her  impetuous  feet ;  and 
perhaps  either  birds  or  flowers  came  nearer  to  the 
young  girl's  heart  just  then  than  our  tenderest 
imagination  can  ever  take  us. 

Aunt  Chloe  had  made  her  pudding  alone,  and  the 
professor  had  eaten  it.  Avis  thought  of  it  as  she 
went  into  the  study.  Very  well.  Other  women 
might  make  puddings. 

She  went  straight  to  her  father's  knee,  and,  stand- 
ing with  her  straw  hat  hanging  by  the  strings  be- 
tween her  crossed  hands,  said  as  simply  as  if  she 
had  been  asking  for  a  kiss,  — 

"  Papa,  I  should  like  to  be  an  artist,  if  you 
please." 

The  professor  looked  up  from  the  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason"  with  a  faint,  appealing  perplexity, 
like  a  child  waked  from  a  nap  in  a  strange  room. 

11  O  Avis!  you  have  come.  Your  aunt  missed 
you  at  dinner.  I  am  sorry  that  you  have  made  her 
more  trouble  about  your  domestic  duties." 

Avis  stood  for  a  moment  perfectly  still.      She 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  59 

seldom  entirely  lost  the  delicate,  fluctuating  color 
which  lighted  her  face.  At  that  moment  she  be- 
came, for  one  of  very  few  times  in  her  life,  abso- 
lutely pale. 

"  But,  papa,"  she  stretched  out  both  her  hands  a 
little  towards  him,  —  "  papa,  3^ou  do  not  understand 
me. 

' '  I  have  decided  this  morning  that  I  want  to  be 
an  artist.  I  want  to  be  educated  as  an  artist,  and 
paint  pictures  all  my  life." 

"Poh,  poh!"  said  the  professor.     "  Nonsense  !" 

Ah,  well !  we  must  forgive  him.  "What  should  he 
know  of  the  apple-trees  and  the  orioles,  the  daisies, 
and  the  blue-and-gold  poem,  and  the  way  of  a  June 
morning  with  a  young  girl's  heart? 

"  Nonsense,  nonsense!  "  repeated  Professor  Do- 
bell.  "  I  can't  have  you  filling  your  head  with  any 
of  these  womanish  apings  of  a  man's  affairs,  like 
a  monkey  playing  tunes  on  a  hand-organ."  He 
spoke  with  a  rude  irritability  not  common  with  him 
in  his  treatment  of  his  little  daughter ;  and  under 
that  cavern  of  his  brows  glittered  the  rare  spark 
which  his  wife  had  known  so  well. 

Avis,  by  some  subtle  law  of  association,  thought 
at  that  moment  of  her  mother,  and  wondered  if  papa 
were  thinking  of  her  also  ;  but  she  said  nothing,  only 
turned  miserably  away. 

"But  my  child,"  called  her  father  more  gently, 
"  come  here,  come  here!  What  is  all  this  about? 
I  don't  understand.  If  you  want  to  go  on  with 


60  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

your  drawing-lessons,  nothing  is  to  prevent,  that  I 
know.  Make  yourself  happy  with  your  paint-box,  if 
you  like.  That  was  a  very  pretty  little  copy  which 
JTOU  made  me  of  Sir  William.  The  likeness  was 
really  preserved." 

Still,  still,  and  forever,  Achilles  will  have  his  one 
little  vulnerabilit}'.  When  he  was  a  young  man, 
Hegel  Dobell  had  been  told  that  he  resembled  Sir 
William  Hamilton.  Perhaps  he  did  :  at  all  events,  it 
was  the  pride  and  delight  of  his  gentle  life  to  think 
so.  A  portrait  engraving  of  the  great  philosopher 
alwaj's  hung  above  the  study-table.  To  be  invited 
into  that  study  was  to  be  expected  to  observe  with 
more  or  less  promptness  that  remarkable  likeness. 
His  college-boys  understood  this  so  well,  that  he 
used  frequently  to  remark,  after  a  visit  from  some 
more  than  commonly  promising  young  man,  how 
much  that  resemblance  seemed  to  be  thought  to  in- 
crease with  years. 

"It  was  a  very  pretty  little  copy,"  repeated  the 
professor. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  make  pretty  little  copies,"  cried 
Avis  with  quivering  lip.  u  '  J  who  love  my  art 
would  never  wish  it  lower  to  suit  my  stature.' ' 

The  professor  of  intellectual  philosophy,  not  being 
well  read  in  u  Aurora  Leigh,"  stared  at  this  alarm- 
ing quotation.  But  Avis  went  headlong  on,  — 

"  I  want  to  be  educated.  I  want  to  be  thoroughly 
educated  in  art.  Mr.  Maynard  told  me,  when  1 
drew  the  Venus,  that  I  should  go  to  Florence." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  61 

"  Certainly, "  said  her  father,  "you  shall  go  to 
Florence  in  due  time,  like  other  educated  young 
ladies.  And,  when  you  have  had  enough  of  Mr. 
Maynard,  I  will  send  you  to  the  Art  School,  if  that 
will  make  you  happy.  But  fret  no  more  about  '  be- 
ing '  this  or  that.  Your  business  at  present  is  to 
4  be  '  a  studious  and  womanly  girl.  Now  kiss  me, 
and  run  and  beg  aunt  Chloe's  pardou  for  being  late 
to  dinner." 

So  lightly  do  we  dispose  of  the  instincts  of  the 
young  thing  lifting  the  first  startled,  self-concentrated 
eyes  to  ours.  We  pat  the  sleeping  lion  at  our  feet  as 
if  it  were  a  spaniel,  offering  milk  and  sugar  to  the 
creature  that  would  feed  on  flesh  and  blood,  and 
settle,  after  the  trifling  disturbance,  to  our  after- 
dinner  nap. 

There  was  little  enough  of  the  lion  in  poor  A  vis's 
composition.  She  had  all  the  self-consciousness  of 
the  artistic  temperament  with  but  a  small  share  of 
its  self-confidence.  After  this  little  scene  with  her 
father,  she  shrank  and  shrivelled  into  herself  for  a 
long  time.  She  must  be  spurred,  applauded,  to  her 
possibility,  or  it  was  possible  no  longer.  It  seemed 
to  her  an  arrogance  not  to  measure  her  belief  in 
herself  by  the  belief  of  others  in  her.  Above  all, 
she  craved  at  this  time  the  daily  stir  and  stimulus  of 
an  idealizing  love.  She  wondered  sometimes,  if  in 
the  feeling  that  other  girls  had  about  their  mothers 
lay  hidden  the  wine  which  she  found  missing  from 
her  youth.  For  a  soul  which  loved  her  so  that  it 


62  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

could  not  help  believing  in  her,  Avis  could  have  dared 
the  world.  But  only  mothers,  she  supposed,  ever 
cared  for  a  perplexed  and  solitary  girl  like  that. 
Still,  because  her  hour  had  come,  and  because  u  the 
June  was  in  her,"  she  bent  blindly  to  her  young  pur- 
pose, in  her  young  and  groping  way. 

But  she  quoted  no  more  Mrs.  Browning  to  her 
father  ;  and,  if  he  praised  her  crayons,  she  sat  politely 
silent.  It  is  possible  that  this  poised  reserve  excited 
in  the  professor  more  respect  than  a  man  may  natu- 
rally be  supposed  to  feel  for  the  mental  processes  of 
his  daughter  at  any  age. 

'When  Avis,  being  nineteen,  and  having  finished, 
as  one  was  careful  to  say  in  Harmouth,  her  school 
education,  thus  delicately  expressing  the  true  Har- 
mouth compassion  for  those  types  of  society  in  which 
post-graduate  courses  of  reading  were  not  added  to 
a  young  lady's  accomplishments, — when  Avis  was 
sent  to  Europe  with  the  Hogarths  and  Coy  to  stay  a 
year,  she  kissed  her  father  good-by  as  innocently 
and  quite  as  charmingly  as  any  young  lady  who  was 
travelling  to  improve  her  accent  in  French.  But, 
when  the  year  was  out,  he  received  from  her  a  serious 
proposition,  that  her  friends  be  allowed  to  return 
without  her,  and  that  she  be  permitted  to  remain  for 
an  indefinite  time,  and  study  art. 

"  She  hasn't  underclothes  enough,"  said  atmt 
Chloe  decidedly.  "I  only  fitted  her  out  for  a  year." 

When  the  professor,  with  a  slow  smile,  suggested 
that  possibly  this  was  a  difficulty  which  time  and 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  63 

talent  could  overcome,  aunt  Chloe  looked  very  much 
depressed.  If  Hegel  were  going  to  give  in  to  Avis 
at  last,  after  all  the  good  sense  that  he  had  shown 
in  managing  her,  the  poor  girl  would  never  be  a 
credit  to  her,  never,  and  her  life's  work  would  sim- 
ply be  thrown  away.  Aunt  Chloe  was  of  quite  as 
unselfish-  a  temper  as  the  most  of  us  ;  but  she  found 
it  hard  sometimes  to  trace  the  exact  distinction  be- 
tween Avis's  good  and  her  own  glory. 

4 'Besides,"  urged  aunt  Chloe,  "  what  is  to  become 
of  her  when  she  is  married?  "  Aunt  Chloe  held  it 
to  be  impossible  that  any  woman  could  make  home 
happy  without  being  able  to  make  good  Graham 
bread ;  and  Avis's  last  remarkable  experiment  in 
this  direction  was  yet  vividly  in  mind.  How  a 
course  of  instruction  in  oil-colors  was  to  help  the 
matter,  it  really  was  not  immediately  easy  to  see. 
But  the  professor  strode  about  his  study  a  little 
while,  and  then  sat  down  and  wrote,  — 

"  It  is  the  custom,  in  the  training  of  carrier-doves, 
to  let  them  all  loose  from  their  places  of  confine- 
ment into  the  upper  air;  but  those  which  do  not 
return  readily  without  interference  are  cast  aside  as 
too  dull  to  be  worth  the  trouble  of  further  education. 

"I  let  you  go,  my  dear  daughter,  not  without 
misgivings  ;  but  omnipotent  Nature  is  wiser  than  I. 
I  should  be  duller  than  the  dullest  bird  among  them 
all,  if  I  could  not  trust  you  at  her  hands." 

Avis  had  now  plunged  into  a  life  which  extremely 
few  women  in  America,  twenty  years  ago,  found  it 


64  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

either  possible  or  desirable  to  lead.  Those  who 
know  any  thing  of  art-circles  in  Italy  at  that  time 
will  recall  the  impression  made  upon  them  by  her 
superb  perseverance  in  mastering  the  difficulties  of 
her  position  long  before  her  gift  had  been  distin- 
guished from  a  grace.  The  shy  American  girl  of 
the  unquestionable  breeding  and  the  yet  half-blos- 
somed beauty,  trod  the  mazes  of  Florentine  life  with 
an  innocent  rapture  which  protected  her  like  a  shin- 
ing veil. 

The  prospect  of  commanding  proper  surroundings 
to  her  venture  had  seemed,  at  first,  a  hopeless  one ; 
but  one  day  her  friends  looked  about  to  find  that 
the  little  Yankee  girl  had  brought  her  circumstances, 
like  spaniels,  to  her  feet.  She  had  even  provided 
herself  with  a  chaperone  of  Mrs.  Hogarth's  own 
selection.  She  had  then  armed  herself  with  a  new 
palette,  Coy's  last  kiss,  and  a  single  introductory 
letter,  and,  with  the  sublime  assurance  of  twenty, 
gone  headlong  to  work. 

With  a  dumb  joy,  such  as  some  world-sick  soul 
of  us  may  feel  in  the  actual,  long-delayed  presence 
of  death,  this  young  thing  now  began  in  soul  and 
sense  to  live. 

Now,  indeed,  she  knew  that  she  had  never  lived 
before.  She  read  her  life  backwards,  like  the  Chal- 
d  leans,  translating  all  its  suppressed  text  by  the 
light  of  her  aspiration,  as  happy  lovers  view  their 
past  by  the  illumination  of  their  love,  grudging  to 
time  every  hour  they  have  spent  apart.  We  find  that 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  65 

most  of  the  traits  of  a  great  affectional  passion  exist 
in  the  young  genius  which  is  making  the  first  use  of 
its  antennae. 

Her  letter,  over  the  signature  of  Frederick  May- 
nard,  was  addressed  to  Alta  Mura,  once  —  as  the 
Harmouth  drawing-teacher  was  used  to  say  with 
lifted  head,  — once  his  master. 

"  Go  over  to  Naples,"  said  the  scrutinizing  artist 
to  whom  the  young  lady  had  been  advised  to  carry 
it;  "go  and  ask  Alta  Mura  what  he  wants  done 
with  you." 

Avis  went  to  Naples,  and  Alta  Mura  sent  her 
back  again. 

"  Are  you  ready,  young  lady,"  he  had  said,  "  to 
spend  two  days  copying  a  carrot  that  hangs  twenty 
feet  awa}T  from  you  against  the  wall?  " 

"  Two  hundred,  if  I  must,"  said  Avis. 

' '  Then  throw  away  every  thing  in  your  very  pretty 
portfolio.  Ma}*nard  has  taken  to  copying  from  the 
flat.  Go  back  to  Florence,  to  a  man  whose  name  I'll 
give  you,  in  a  street  that  I  will  tell  you.  Do  exactly 
as  he  bids  you  for  two  years ;  then  come  back  to 
me." 

"  She  will  get  tired  of  it  in  six  months,"  said  aunt 
Chloe ;  u  but  I'll  knit  her  some  woollen  stockings, 
for  I'm  told  the  Italian  winters  are  quite  rheumatic." 
Aunt  Chloe  was  still  so  old-fashioned,  that  she  would 
not  say,  "  neuralgic,"  even  of  a  young  lady's  bones. 

And  the  professor  paced  the  silent  study,  beneath 
the  portrait  of  Sir  William,  wondering  sometimes, 


66  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

when  the  sun  got  low,  where  it  was  he  found  that 
rather  touching  anecdote  about  the  carrier-doves. 

A\> is,  in  the  little  bare  studio,  —  high,  high,  so 
high  that  it  seemed,  by  putting  her  hand  out  of  the 
window  in  the  roof,  she  could  touch  the  purple  wide- 
ness  of  the  Florentine  sky,  —  had  her  own  thoughts 
about  those  doves,  perhaps. 

But  she  stooped  to  her  task  with  a  stern,  ungirlish 
doggedness.  In  the  little  attic  studio,  Pegasus 
kicked  at  the  plough  now  and  then,  but,  on  the 
whole,  behaved  himself  somewhat  remarkably.  She 
was  young  to  have  been  so  docile  ;  but  she  thought 
nothing  about  that.  She  did  not  know  that  she  was 
in  any  sense  unusual  in  coining  the  fervors  of  twenty 
to  secure  that  most  elusive  of  human  gifts,  —  a  dis- 
ciplined imagination.  The  self-distrust  which  had 
shrunk  at  the  first  rebuff  of  ardor  was  her  preserva- 
tion now.  She  abandoned  herself  to  the  grating 
drudgeries  involved  in  mastering  the  technique  of 
art  with  a  passion  of  which  it  were  not  discerm'ng 
not  to  say  that  it  added  to  the  fire  of  the  artist 
something  of  feminine  self-abnegation. 

In  short,  Avis  shared  the  fate  of  most  American 
art-students  in  Italy  at  that  time.  She  simply  spent 
two  years  unlearning,  that  she  might  begin  to  learn. 

When  these  two  years  were  over,  she  went  back 
to  Alta  Mura.  He  said,  — 

"  Now  I  will  see  if  you  can  be  taught,"  and  took 
her,  with  her  chaperone,  into  the  atelier,  under  his 
protection.  She  went  to  her  place  on  the  front 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  67 

settee  before  the  students  entered,  and  left  it  after 
they  had  gone. 

When  two  years  were  gone  again,  Alt  a  Mura  sent 
her  to  Paris  ;  and  Paris  sent  her  to  Couture. 

When  she  was  in  Paris,  her  father  came  out  to  see 
her. 

"  I  think  I  would  let  the  dove  fly/'  he  said,  "  a 
little  longer." 

One  day  Couture  came  into  the  studio,  and  said,  — 

"  Mademoiselle,  I  will  give  you  two  years  to  make 
a  reputation." 

Avis,  standing  with  her  slender  thumb  piercing 
her  palette,  and  her  brushes  gathered  with  it,  thrust 
out  her  empty  hand  with  a  gesture  which  the  great 
artist  admired  more  thoroughly  than  he  understood. 
Her  magnificent,  rare  pallor  swept  over  her  face,  and 
the  quality  of  her  features  heightened.  Her  face 
and  head  looked  larger  when  she  was  pale.  She 
reminded  him  at  that  moment  of  Soddoma's  Roxana, 
in  the  Alexander's  marriage  at  Rome.  Copies  from 
the  fresco  sometimes  had  that  colossal  look,  and  her 
face  had  taken  on  the  tints  of  a  deep  engraving.  If 
the  Archangel  Gabriel  had  said,  "Mademoiselle,  I 
will  let  you  into  heaven,  be  but  so  good  as  to  wait 
an  hour,"  Avis  might  have  looked  at  him  with  just 
that  widening  of  the  eyes  and  parting  of  the  lips. 

She  went  back  to  her  apartments  that  morning 
with  a  dazzled  face ;  but  she  walked  weakly,  and 
for  the  first  time  for  nearly  six  }Tears  of  hard  work 
and  hard  homesickness,  burst  into  a  passion  of  hys- 


68  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

terical  tears.  She  had  worked  so  gently  and  so 
humbty,  with  such  patient  service  of  her  possibility, 
that  success  overtook  her  with  more  the  grip  of  a 
paralysis  than  the  thrill  of  a  delight.  For  two 
days  she  lay  actually  ill  upon  her  bed.  For  a  week 
she  did  not  enter  the  studio,  but  wandered  about 
Paris  like  a  spirit  in  a  vision.  The  monarch  of  her 
young  future  had  turned  lover,  and  kneeled  at  her 
feet.  His  resplendent  promise  humbled  her.  Like 
the  beggar-maiden  in  the  story,  she  stretched  no 
hand  out  towards  her  crown,  and  stood  with  down- 
cast eyes  "  before  the  King  Cophetua." 

It  was  under  the  glamour  of  these  blinding  days 
that  she  found  herself  one  afternoon  wandering  into 
the  Madeleine.  The  blessed  Christian  habit  by  which 
an  over-full  heart  relieves  itself  in  prayer  to  an  un- 
seen God,  was  on  her. 

But  just  then  the  tropical  Catholic  atmosphere 
came  more  kindly  to  the  New-England  girl  than  any 
other  could.  In  the  college  chapel  at  home,  perhaps, 
she  would  have  found  an  audible  public  prayer  at 
an  arctic  remove  from  the  seething  necessities  of 
her  mood.  She  kneeled  at  vespers  in  the  Madeleine 
in  that  temper  when  a  religion  of  emotions  assumes 
a  sacerdotal  authority  over  the  intellect,  and  even  a 
superstition  takes  on  the  sacredness  of  faith.  Avis 
often  found  in  such  hours  a  certain  positive  physical 
repose,  which  only  the  reverent  can  understand,  or 
even,  perhaps,  respect.  It  seemed  to  her  that  these 
prajTers,  which  bore  the  burden  of  centuries  of  half- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  69 

inarticulate  human  longing,  surrounded  her  like  ever- 
lasting arms  ;  and  upon  the  chant  which  held  the  cry 
of  ages  she  leaned  her  head,  as  John  did  upon  the 
bosom  of  his  Lord.  It  would  be  impossible,  of 
course,  to  explain  to  any  other  than  a  believer  that 
this  was  something  as  much  deeper  than  a  physiolo- 
gical effect  as  the  soul  is  finer  than  the  body. 

It  was  when  Avis  rose  from  her  knees,  with  the 
halo  that  John  himself  might  have  worn  upon  her 
face,  and  was  about  turning,  with  the  few  stray 
Parisians  who  surrounded  her,  to  leave  the  Made- 
leine that  afternoon,  that  she  found  herself  arrested 
by  a  pair  of  eyes  fastened  upon  her  in  the  twilight, 
across  the  nave. 

They  were  the  eyes  of  a  fellow-countryman,  as  it 
took  but  the  flash  of  an  instinct  to  see. 

Avis,  in  that  flash,  said,  u  There  is  a  remarkable 
face  ! ' '  Perhaps  any  one  would  have  called  it  a  re- 
markable face :  certainly,  in  the  impressive  back- 
ground of  the  dim-lit  church,  it  blazed  like  an  amber 
intaglio. 

We  see  occasionally  in  women,  but  very  rarely  in 
a  man,  that  union  of  the  Saxon  and  the  Southern 
which  weds  the  fair  hair  to  the  dark  eye.  This  face 
was  set  in  a  nimbus  of  bright  hair,  which,  in  a  boy- 
hood not  too  long  departed,  must  have  been  of  deep, 
unusual  gold.  A  beard  which  had  never  known  a 
razor  quite  concealed  the  outline  of  what  seemed  to 
be  a  sensitive  mouth  ;  but  of  that  it  was  impossible 
to  tell.  The  young  man  wore  his  hair  a  little  long, 


70  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

perhaps  with  either  the  carelessness  or  the  affecta- 
tion of  a  student.  Avis  liked  the  shape  of  his  head, 
which  her  artist's  glance  had  caught  simultaneously 
with  the  color  and  character  of  his  eyes.  These 
were  black,  with  a  large  iridescent  pupil,  which  she 
felt  concentrated  upon  her  —  upon  her  lifted  face, 
her  arrested  motion,  her  responsive  attitude  —  like 
a  burning-glass. 

The  telegraphic  signal-system  of  the  human  soul 
runs  now  and  then  in  a  cipher  blank  to  the  most 
imaginative  of  us  all.  It  is  not  easy  to  explain,  but 
most  of  us  will  admit,  the  effect  which  people  may 
produce  upon  one  another  by  the  outleaping  eye  in 
the  prison  of  a  chance  crowd.  I  do  not  think  that  I 
am  overstating  the  case,  in  saying  that  these  two, 
man  and  woman  grown,  going  out  from  the  Made- 
leine that  afternoon  to  the  world's  wide  ends,  would 
have  thought  of  one  another,  as  we  think  of  an 
unread  poem,  or  an  undiscovered  country,  as  long 
either  lived. 

In  Avis  this  was  very  natural.  The  artist's 
world  is  peopled  with  the  vanishing  of  such  mute 
and  unknown  friends  ;  and  the  artist's  eye  is  privi- 
leged to  take  their  passports  as  they  come  and  go. 

But  when,  standing  with  her  gloved  hand  upon  a 
column,  her  face,  draped  in  the  dark  veil  of  her 
little  Parisian  hat,  bent  slightly  forwards  and  up- 
wards, and  her  eyes  gone  rebel  to  ah1  but  the  in- 
stinct of  the  moment,  starting,  she  stirred  and 
turned  away,  she  felt  a  great  tidal  wave  of  color 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  71 

surge  across  her  face.  If  the  eye  of  that  amber 
god  across  the  Madeleine  had  caught  an  artist,  it 
had  held  a  woman. 

Avis  became  aware  of  this  with  a  scorching, 
maidenly  self-scorn.  She  dropped  her  veil,  and  hur- 
ried from  the  church. 


72  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

"  My  saul,  ye  maun  blythe-bid  the  Lord,  ettlin'  his  carriage  the  cluds; 

on  the  wings  o'  the  win'  making'  speed: 

Errand-runner  he  make  o'  the  blasts,  and  loons  o'  his  ain,  the 
bleeze  o'  lowe."  —  SCOTCH  PSALMS. 

0 

IF  Philip  Ostrander  expected  Miss  Dobell  to  join 
his  German  class,  he  was  doomed  to  what  it  is 
not  exactly  correct  to  call  a  disappointment.  Proba- 
bly he  did  expect  it.  The  other  young  ladies  had 
all  joined.  Young  ladies  were  apt  to  join  any 
classes  which  he  chanced  to  open  without  undue 
reluctance.  He  had  been  in  the  frequent  way  of 
this  sort  of  thing,  in  the  natural  course  of  that 
griping  struggle  with  ways  and  means  which  had 
brought  the  keen-eyed,  poverty-ridden  boy  from  an 
uncultivated  New-Hampshire  home  to  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  positions  which  New  England  had 
then  to  offer. 

For  it  was  now  considered,  as  Avis  heard  from  her 
father  when  she  had  been  at  home  a  little  while, 
quite  assured  that  Mr.  Ostrander  would  ultimately 
take  the  geological  chair  through  the  probation  of 
the  assistant  professorship.  True  he  was  not  a 
Harmouth  graduate,  this  the  professor  regretted 
keenly  ;  but  his  shining  talents  burned  the  more  con- 
spicuously for  this  disadvantage.  And  that  he  had 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  73 

refused  a  position  in  his  Alma  Mater  to  compass 
those  two  years  in  Germany,  by  which  a  promising 
3roung  man  expected,  with  some  confidence,  fifteen 
or  twenty  3Tears  ago,  to  become  immediately  "  dis- 
tinguished," had  naturally  recommended  him  to  the 
Harmouth  perceptive  Faculty. 

Coy  was  right  when  she  said  that  Mr.  Ostrander 
was  thought  in  Harmouth  to  be  remarkably  versatile. 

At  all  events,  a  versatility  which  can  be  converted 
into  a  dollar  an  hour  is  not  to  be  despised  by  a 
Harmouth  tutor  ;  and  Ostrander  held  the  rudder  of 
his  yet  unanchored  craft  with  a  very  easy  hand. 

In  this  matter  of  the  German  lessons  —  which, 
requiring  but  the  sh'ghtest  type  of  attention,  left 
him  space  for  a  good  deal  of  revery,  —  he  was  con- 
scious of  watching  narrowly  to  see  what  Miss  Dobell 
would  do.  During  the  afternoons  which  he  spent  in 
the  sunny  parlors  of  the  Harmouth  ladies,  with  the 
prettiest  girls  in  the  city  chirping  gutturals  at  his 
feet,  or  in  the  evenings  which  he  devoted  to  Barbara 
Allen's  fine  renderings  of  Schumann,  he  made  no 
attempt  to  deny  that  the  young  artist  occupied  cer- 
tain large  untravelled  spaces  upon  the  map  of  his 
fancy.  It  is  more  than  possible,  that  if  Avis  had 
.drifted  into  the  German  class ;  if  there  had  been 
established  between  them  that  time-honored  relation 
of  master  and  pupil,  which,  always  fraught  with  the 
sweetest  possible  perils  to  man  and  woman,  is  more 
stimulating  to  the  imagination  of  the  pupil  than  of 
the  master ;  if  Avis,  too,  had  sat  and  chirped  at  his 
feet,  then  —  well,  what  then? 


74  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Possibly  Ostrander  assumed  that  then  the  delicate 
poem  opened  one  day  at  vespers  in  the  Madeleine 
would  hardly  have  been  found  worth  the  reading, 
and  the  radiant,  undiscovered  country  would  have 
scarcely  compelled  the  explorer  over  the  threshold. 

Possibly,  too,  both  nature  and  experience  would 
have  taken  his  brief,  had  he  been  tried  for  this 
assumption.  Ostrander,  at  this  period  of  his  life, 
protected  himself  against  the  ambuscades  of  his 
own  temperament  with  that  forethought  which  an 
unmarried  man  of  thirty  is  clearly  expected  to  have 
acquired.  But  he  experienced  a  singular  sense  of 
relief  and  expectancy,  when  several  weeks  had 
passed,  and  Miss  Dobell  did  not  join  the  German 
class. 

That  sib}7!  of  the  Madeleine  perhaps  possessed 
the  fine  old  classic  instinct  which  every  year  he 
thought  grew  rare  and  rarer  among  women.  She 
must,  it  seemed,  be  absolutely  sought. 

Some  pressing  Faculty  business  took  him,  before 
the  vacillating  April  days  were  quite  over,  to  Pro- 
fessor Dobell's  house.  He  called  at  dusk,  and  aunt 
Chloe  invited  him  to  tea.  He  hesitatingly  refused  ; 
but  when  she  said,  — 

"Then  come  next  Friday,  Mr.  Ostrander:  it  is 
a  long  time  since  we  have  had  the  pleasure,  and  I 
notice  my  brother  is  always  in  good  spirits  when  you 
have  been  to  see  us,"  he  accepted  the  invitation  at 
once.  He  did  not  in  the  least  attempt  to  wrestle 
with  his  motive  in  this  innocent  bit  of  scene-shifting, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  75 

but  allowed  himself  to  be  led  blindfold  by  it.  His 
wish  to  see  that  girl  again  had  become  imperative. 
Ostrander  had  the  deepest  respect  for  whatever  he 
found  really  imperious  in  himself. 

With  Friday,  the  New-England  April  weather  had 
assumed  one  of  the  caprices  which  we  tolerate  so 
tenderly  in  any  born  coquette  ;  and  snow  fell  heavi- 
ly. The  day  before  had  been  as  gentle  as  a  baby's 
dream.  Avis  worked  in  the  studio  in  the  garden 
without  a  fire  ;  and  one  of  the  college-boys  brought 
Ostrander  a  tuft  of  saxifrage  from  the  pale-green 
promise  of  the  meadows.  That  morning  the  wind 
lay  in  the  east  sleepily  enough  ;  but  by  noon  the  air 
was  blurred  with  the  large,  irregular  spring  flakes, 
as  if  Nature  had  taken  a  wayward  fancy  to  fold  her- 
self in  a  Japanese  screen.  In  the  afternoon,  when 
Ostrander  had  strolled  out  of  town,  and  down  the 
shore  to  see  the  surf,  the  drifts  were  already  piling 
high.  He  tramped  through  them  lightly  enough,  in 
the  rubber-boots  which  are  the  chief  end  of  man  in 
New  England,  and  with  his  soft  silk  cap  drawn  over 
his  eyes,  and  his  powerful  figure  bent  a  little  with 
the  first  languid  action  of  a  wrestler  upon  it,  yielded 
himself  to  the  intoxication  of  the  winter  shore. 

Few  greater  passions  pass  more  readily  into  the 
permanence  and  fidelity  of  love  than  the  passion 
for  the  sea.  Ostrander  had  an  elemental  kinship 
with  it  in  himself,  which  every  year  of  his  life 
had  intensified.  He  sometimes  wished  that  he  was 
quite  sure  he  cared  as  much  for  any  human  creature 


76  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

as  he  did  for  Harmouth  Harbor.  He  struck  off 
down  the  drifted  beach  toward  the  Light.  The  wind 
was  in  his  face.  Through  the  opaque  air  he  could 
see  rudely  denned,  like  the  values  of  a  vast,  unfin- 
ished sketch,  the  waves  leap  and  slip  and  fall  upon 
the  glazed  cliffs,  and  across  the  narrow  reef  from 
which  the  light-house  shot  sheer  against  the  sky. 
He  pushed  on  down,  perhaps  a  mile,  to  find  a  shelter ; 
and  there,  with  the  tide  at  his  feet  and  the  spray  in 
his  face,  flung  himself  upon  the  freezing  rocks,  pos- 
sessed with  a  kind  of  fierce  but  abundant  joy. 

The  Light  stood  just  across  the  bay  where  the 
Harbor  widened  to  the  sea ;  it  might  have  been  a 
dozen  rods  or  so  from  where  Ostrander  sat.  The 
reef,  traversable  at  low  tide,  ran  from  it  to  a  gorge 
within  the  cliff.  The  well-defined  metallic  tints  com- 
mon to  the  New-England  coast  —  the  greens  and  reds 
and  umbers,  the  colors  of  rust,  of  bronze,  of  ruins 
—  covered  the  reef.  The  gorge  was  a  vein  of  deep 
purple  lava,  which  to  Ostrander 's  educated  eye  told 
the  story  of  a  terrible  organic  divorce. 

The  wave  that  tore  its  heart  out  at  his  feet  was 
throbbing  green ;  but,  beyond  that,  the  inrolling 
tide,  the  chalky  outline  of  the  Light,  the  harbor- 
mouth,  the  narrowing  horizon,  the  low  sky,  all  the 
world,  lay  gray  beneath  the  footsteps  of  the  dizzy 
snow.  The  wind  was  rising  from  the  sullenness  of 
a  blow  to  the  anger  of  a  gale ;  and  the  crash  of 
the  breakers  which  he  could  see  had  a  shrill,  petu- 
lant sound  set  to  the  boom  of  those  unseen  across 
the  bay. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  77 

Was  it  the  lawlessness  of  all  this,  or  the  law  of 
it,  that  thrilled  Ostrander?  Was  it  the  passion,  or 
the  purpose,  which  commanded  him?  Was  the 
eternal  drama  of  unrest  an  outlet,  or  an  inlet,  to  his 
nature ;  an  excitant,  or  a  sedative  ?  It  were  hard 
to  say.  The  young  man  asked  himself  the  question, 
but  found  a  shrug  of  his  fine  shoulders  the  most 
intelligent  answer  at  his  command. 

Or  perhaps  we  must  admit  that  there  was  as  much 
rheumatism  as  philosophy  in  that  shrug.  It  certainly 
was  growing  very  cold,  and  darkening  fast. 

Ostrander  had  been  somewhat  sheltered  by  the 
cliff  at  whose  feet  he  sat ;  so  much  so,  that  he  was 
quite  unaware  of  the  extent  to  which  the  wind  had 
risen.  A  man  does  not  sit  very  long  upon  an  ice- 
covered  rock  ;  but  a  few  moments  will  suffice  to  let 
loose  the  prisoned  temper  of  an  April  gale.  When 
he  turned  to  get  back  to  the  beach,  he  found  the 
wind  racing  through  the  lava-gorge  at  the  rate  of 
perhaps  eighty  miles  an  hour,  and  the  snow  seeth- 
ing under  his  feet  before  the  first  oncoming  of  the 
heavj^,  breeze-swept  tide. 

He  stopped  to  pull  up  his  coat-collar,  as  he  would 
now  have  the  storm  at  his  back ;  as  he  did  so,  the 
fog-bell  began  to  toll  from  the  Light,  and  he  turned 
instinctively  at  the  sound. 

At  that  moment  he  saw  a  figure  between  himself 
and  the  light-house,  moving  slowly  shorewards  along 
the  reef.  It  was  the  figure  of  a  woman  —  it  was 
the  figure  of  a  lady,  slight  and  delicately  dressed. 


78  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

It  was  not  so  dark  but  that  lie  could  see  that  she 
moved  with  great  difficulty.  The  reef  was  jagged 
as  a  saw,  and  glare  with  the  thin,  blue,  cruel  ice. 
It  ran  at  an  angle  to  the  northward,  and  took  the 
whole  sweep  of  the  easterly  gale. 

Ostrander,  as  he  watched  her,  felt  the  blood  tingle 
about  his  heart.  He  believed  that  there  was  but  one 
lady  in  Harmouth  who  would  have  taken  a  walk  to 
the  light-house  on  such  a  day.  Did  Miss  Dobell 
know  that  not  one  woman  in  one  hundred  could  get 
across  that  reef  in  a  blow  like  this?  The  light- 
keeper  must  have  been  mad  to  let  her  start. 

It  seemed  that  the  light-keeper  himself  was  coming 
to  that  late  and  useful  conclusion.  Dimly  through 
the  snow  Ostrander  saw  the  flash  of  the  lantern  with 
which  he  had  accompanied  her  to  the  reefs  edge. 
There  was  still  much  sickly  light  in  the  air,  and  the 
lantern  shone  pale  and  ghastly.  The  man  gesticu- 
lated violently,  and  seemed  to  be  shouting  unheard 
words.  Ostrander  remembered  suddenly  how  shal- 
low the  rocks  grew  in  sloping  to  the  little  island. 
The  rising  tide  had  probably  cut  between  the  keeper 
and  the  lady,  and  by  this  time  distinctly  severed 
them. 

Ostrander  hesitated  no  longer,  but  ran  swiftly  out 
upon  the  reef. 

She  was  making  her  way  valiantly  enough,  per- 
haps without  any  more  than  a  vague  and  not  un- 
pleasant consciousness  of  possible  peril.  The  gale 
took  the  heavy  drapery  of  her  skirts  and  long  water- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  79 

proof  cloak  in  a  cruel  fashion,  winding  them  about 
and  about  her  limbs.  She  looked  very  tall  in  the 
waning  light,  and  there  was  a  certain  grandeur  in  her 
motions.  She  stood  out  against  the  ice-covered  rock 
like  a  creature  sprung  from  it,  sculptured,  primeval, 
born  of  the  storm. 

As  Ostrander  ran  along  the  reef,  he  saw  her  stop 
or  stagger,  hesitate,  then  stoop  slowly,  and  take  to 
her  hands  and  knees.  She  rose  again  in  a  moment, 
and  stood  cowering  a  little,  afraid  or  unable  to  stretch 
her  full  height  to  the  force  of  the  gale,  which  seemed 
to  Ostrander  something  satanic,  now  that  he  was  in 
the  teeth  of  it  upon  that  reef.  Could  a  blind,  insen- 
sate force  of  Nature,  so  many  feet  of  atmospheric 
pressure  to  the  square  inch,  obedient  to  a  powerful, 
and,  on  the  whole,  kindly-disposed  Creator,  set  the 
whole  weight  of  its  brute  organism  to  work  with  this 
devilish  intelligence,  to  beat  a  delicate  woman,  blow 
by  blow,  to  death  ?  There  seemed  something  so  pro- 
foundly revolting  to  Ostrander 's  manhood  in  this  idea, 
just  then,  that  it  did  not  occur  to  him,  that  he  was 
not  the  only  man  in  the  world  who  had  ever  experi- 
enced his  first  genuine  defiance  of  fate  in  some 
stress  of  peril  sprung  upon  the  woman  whom  he 
would  have  given —  What  would  Ostrander  have 
given  to  save  her  ? 

It  seemed  to  htm  at  that  moment  that  he  would 
have  given  his  young  life ;  for  as  he  crept  along  the 
reef — now  swiftly,  that  he  might  reach  her,  and  then 
slowly,  that  he  might  not  startle  her  —  she  threw  up 
her  arms,  and  fell. 


80  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

He  came  leaping  from  rock  to  rock,  and  would  pos- 
sibly have  plunged  into  the  water ;  but  through  the 
dusk  he  heard  her  voice. 

She  said,  "  I  have  not  fallen  into  the  water.  Can 
you  get  over  to  that  great  purple  rock?  " 

She  spoke  so  quietly,  that  he  was  completely  re- 
assured about  her  until  he  crawled  over  under  the 
pounding  of  the  gale,  and,  dashing  the  snow  out  of 
his  eyes,  looked  down.  She  had  slipped  from  the 
edge  of  the  reef,  and  hung  at  full-length  along  the 
slope  of  a  huge  bowlder.  The  slope  was  perhaps 
twenty  feet  long,  and  very  gradual :  it  was  covered 
with  ice.  The  spray  froze  in  his  face  as  he  looked 
over.  The  water  was  breaking  across  her  feet.  She 
clung  with  both  hands  to  the  polished  edge  of  the 
bowlder :  there  was  blood  upon  the  ice  where  she 
had  clutched  and  beaten  it  away.  But  perhaps  the 
fact  which  came  most  distinctly  to  Ostrander's  con- 
sciousness was,  that  the  tips  of  her  fingers  were 
absolutely  without  color. 

The  first  thing  which  he  did  was  to  tear  off  his  fur 
gloves,  and,  leaning  over  the  reef,  stretch  both  his 
warm  hands  upon  hers.  The  water  sucked  between 
the  reef  and  the  bowlder  in  a  narrow,  inky  stream. 

"  You  are  right,"  she  said:  "  they  were  getting 
frost-bitten.  There.  Now  I  can  hold  myself  easily 
enough  as  long  as  I  must.  Mr.  Ostrander,  do  you 
find  it  very  slippery  upon  the  reef  ?  " 

4 'Not  in  the  least,"  said  Ostrander  grimly,  grind- 
ing his  heel  into  the  ice. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  81 

"Can  you  brace  yourself  sufficiently  to  put  one 
foot  against  the  bowlder?" 

"I  should  hope  so." 

"  Only  one  foot,  please,  and  only  one  hand.  Do 
not  try  to  get  upon  the  bowlder,  and  do  not  step 
between  the  bowlder  and  the  reef.  Do  you  under- 
stand?" 

"Miss  Dobell,  give  me  one  hand  now  —  slowly. 
Raise  your  fingers,  one  at-a  time,  and  put  them  into 
mine. 

uDo  you  understand  that  you  are  not  to  come 
upon  the  bowlder  ? 

"If  you  do  not  give  me  your  hand  immediately,  I 
cannot  possibly  answer  for  what  I  shall  do." 

"  Promise  me,  that,  if  I  slip,  you  will  let  go." 

"  I  promise  nothing.     Give  me  your  hand !  " 

"  Promise  that  you  will  not  let  me  drag  you  after 
me." 

"  I  promise  any  thing.  For  God's  sake,  give  me, 
this  instant,  the  fingers  of  your  right  hand  !  " 

She  gave  them  to  him  with  that,  obediently 
enough.  She  lifted  them  one  by  one  from  the  ice  ; 
one  by  one  he  slipped  his  own  under  them,  slid  the 
palm  of  his  hand  slowly  under  the  palm  of  hers  ;  so 
cautiously,  but  with  the  full  prehensile  force  of  her 
own  supple  touch  to  help  him,  reached  and  grasped 
her  wrist.  Avis  had  firmer  fingers  than  most  women  ; 
but  they  were  as  supple  as  withes. 

"Now,  the  other!" 

They  managed  it  with  the  other  more  nervously, 
for  the  water  was  now  dashing  freely  in  their  faces. 


82  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Now  I  am  quite  firm  upon  the  reef.  I  shall 
draw  you  easily  up.  Do  you  trust  me  perfectly  that 
I  know  what  I  am  about?  " 

"  Perfectly.  Do  you  remember,  that,  in  case  of 
an  accident,  only  one  must  slip?  " 

"  I  remember." 

"  Very  well." 

"  Are  you  ready?  " 

"  Quite  ready." 

It  seemed  to  Avis  but  a  moment's  work ;  and  they 
sat  crouched  and  panting  side  by  side  upon  the 
broad  surface  of  the  reef.  She  could  not  possibly 
have  said  how  she  came  there.  Her  most  definite 
thought  was  a  perfectly  new  conception  of  the  power 
of  the  human  hand.  Ostrander 's  controlled,  intelli- 
gent grasp  challenged  the  blind  mood  of  the  gale : 
it  was  iron  and  velvet,  it  was  fury  and  pity  ;  as  if 
the  soul  of  the  storm  had  assumed  the  sense  of  a 
man. 

As  soon  as  might  be,  for  the  tide  was  rising  fast, 
they  made  their  way  across  the  reef,  and  sat  down 
for  a  moment's  breath  upon  the  shore.  Neither  had 
yet  spoken.  Ostrander  had  not,  indeed,  released 
the  grip  which  he  had  of  Miss  Dobell's  hand.  Avis 
was  the  first  to  break  the  silence  which  had  fallen 
upon  them.  She  said,  — 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  killed  the  bird." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon?  "  said  Ostrander,  staring. 

"  I  went  over  to  the  Light  to  see  about  the  birds 
that  are  brought  by  the  storm,"  said  Avis,  exactly 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  83 

as  if  nothing  had  happened.  "  The  keeper  gave 
me  a  little  blue-jay  that  he  picked  up  under  the 
light-house.  He  thought  it  might  live ;  and  I 
wrapped  it  in  my  cloak-pocket.  Ah,  see  !  No :  it 
is  alive." 

"  Give  it  to  me,"  said  Ostrander,  adopting  the 
young  lady's  tone  very  quietly.  "You  are  too 
much  chilled  to  keep  it.  And  now  are  you  able  to 
get  on  a  little  ?  The  tide  is  becoming  really  trouble- 
some ;  and  the  walk  is  longer  than  I  wish  it  were." 

He  took  the  bird,  and,  unfastening  his  coat, 
wrapped  it  in  his  breast.  Avis,  looking  up  through 
the  dusk,  thought  how  tenderly  the  little  act  was 
done. 

"The  poor  thing  nutters  against  my  heart,"  said 
Ostrander  in  his  exquisitely-modulated  tones.  He 
had  one  of  those  voices  into  which  all  the  tenderness 
of  the  nature  flows  readily,  like  the  meadows  which 
are  the  first  to  receive  the  freshet  of  the  river.  And 
then  Ostrander  was  really  sorry  for  the  bird. 

Avis  made  no  reply.  She  took  his  arm  in  silence, 
and  in  silence  they  passed  through  the  lava-gorge, 
and  out  upon  the  drifted  beach.  There  she  stopped 
and  looked  back.  The  fog-bell  was  tolling  steadi- 
ly, and  under  the  gray  sheen  of  the  snow  the  grayer 
mist  stole  in. 

' 4 1  have  always  wondered  exactly  what  made  this 
gorge,"  she  said,  quite  as  if  she  and  Ostrander  had 
only  come  out  on  a  little  geological  expedition. 
"  What  was  torn  out  of  the  heart  of  the  rock?  " 


84  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Nothing  was  torn  out,"  said  Ostrander.  "  The 
two  sides  of  that  gorge  are  thrust  apart  by  flood  or 
fire.  They  were  originally  of  one  flesh.  It  was  a 
perfect  primeval  marriage.  The  heart  of  the  rock 
was  simply  broken." 

Avis  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  purple  shadow  of 
the  cleft,  into  which  the  water  was  now  bounding 
high.  A  certain  awe  fell  upon  them  both  as  Ostran- 
der spoke.  Instinctively  they  glanced  from  rent 
side  to  rent  side  of  the  divorced  cliff,  and  then  into 
one  another's  faces.  Stirred  by  the  strain  of  peril 
and  the  thrill  of  safety,  Avis's  excited  imagination 
took  vivid  hold  of  the  story  of  the  rock.  It  seemed 
to  her  as  if  they  stood  there  in  the  wake  of  an  awful 
organic  tragedy,  differing  from  human  tragedy  only 
in  being  symbolic  of  it;  as  if  through  the  deep, 
dumb  suffering  of  Nature,  the  deeper  because  the 
dumber,  all  little  human  pains  went  seething  shal- 
lowly,  as  the  tide  came  seething  through  the  gorge. 
In  some  form  or  other,  the  motherhood  of  earth 
had  forecast  all  types  of  anguish  under  which  her 
children  groaned  ;  had  also  thrilled,  perhaps,  beneath 
all  forms  of  joy.  Suppose  the  bridal  gladness  or 
the  widowed  pathos  of  a  rock.  Suppose  the  sen- 
tient nature  of  a  thing  adapted  to  its  reticence. 
What  a  story,  then,  in  sea  or  shore,  in  forest,  hills, 
and  sky,  in  wind  and  fire,  in  all  things  whose  mighty 
lips  were  sealed !  Suppose  she  herself,  gone  mute 
as  the  mutest  of  them,  cognizant  of  their  secret, 
joined  to  thsir  brotherhood,  were  dashing  on  the 
tide  across  the  lava-gorge. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  85 

As  they  turned  away,  she  leaned  rather  heavily 
upon  his  arm,  and  tremulously  said,  — 

"I  suppose,  Mr.  Ostrander,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  you" — 

uAh,  no,  no!"  interrupted  Ostrander  quickly. 
"  The  light-keeper  would  have  got  out  the  boats.  I 
have  only  saved  you  a  pretty  cold  bath.  Pray  let 
us  not  talk  of  that.  —  But  indeed,"  he  added, 
abruptly  changing  his  tone,  "  I  begin  to  understand 
why  the  people  in  the  novels  always  are  saving  each 
other's  lives.  It  is  just  another  instance  of  the 
absolute  naturalness  of  much  that  we  are  all  used  to 
call  unnatural  in  fiction." 

"And  why?"  asked  Avis,  without  the  least  ap- 
parent awkwardness. 

"Because  nothing  acquaints  two  people  like  the 
unconventionalities  of  danger.  It  seems  to  me  — 
pray  pardon  me  —  as  if  I  had  known  you  for  a  long 
tune." 

Avis  made  no  reply ;  and  they  struck  out  upon 
the  drifting  shore.  They  seemed  to  have  been  taken 
up  now,  and  driven  by  the  gale  behind  them,  as  if 
they  had  been  scooped  into  the  hollow  of  a  mighty 
hand. 

"And  nothing  isolates,"  continued  Ostrander, 
' '  like  the  interchange  of  emotions  which  any  such 
experience  involves.  See  now,"  added  the  young 
man,  looking  about  the  desolate  shore,  "how  lonely 
we  seem.  It  would  be  easy  to  think  that  there  was 
no  other  life  than  ours  in  all  this  world." 


86  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

He  turned  as  he  spoke,  and  would  have  stood  to 
face  the  wind ;  but  the  mighty  hand  which  had  gath- 
ered them  swept  them  imperiously  on,  as  if  it  con- 
ceived them  to  have  been  bent  upon  some  terrible 
errand  of  its  own. 

Perhaps  Ostrander,  too,  had  received  quite  his 
share  of  the  excitement  of  that  April  afternoon. 
He  was  in  some  sense  rather  a  guarded  man  in  his 
habit  of  speech  among  women,  sufficiently  cautious 
not  to  involve  himself  in  those  little  ambiguous 
sallies  of  the  lip  to  which  young  ladies  attach  an 
importance  which  a  man  reserves  for  affairs.  He 
caught  himself  in  thinking  that  he  did  not  know 
another  woman  in  the  world  to  whom  he  could  have 
made  that  speech  without  a  savage  and  humiliating 
fear  of  misinterpretation. 

With  a  little  of  the  madness  of  any  rarely-tasted 
license,  he  plunged  on,  — 

"  How  like  you  it  was,  in  the  midst  of  all  that, 
to  tell  me  to  get  upon  the  purple  rock !  " 

"How  do  you  know  it  was  like  me?"  laughed 
Avis,  as  they  struggled  through  the  snow. 

"  I  think  I  have  always  known  what  would  be  like 
you,"  said  the  young  ,man  in  a  lower  voice,  "  since 
I  saw  you  in  the  Madeleine." 

There  is  a  certain  shade  of  expression  peculiar  to 
a  man's  face,  which  every  woman  knows,  but  few 
understand.  It  falls  as  far  short  of  the  flash  of 
over-mastering  feeling  on  the  one  hand  as  it  does 
of  self-possession  on  the  other.  Its  wearer  is  at 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  87 

once  constrained  to  admire,  and  predetermined  not 
to  love  ;  and  precisely  in  so  far  as  he  is  unconscious 
even  of  that  predetermination  does  this  delicate 
play  of  the  features  take  on  the  appearance  of  the 
strongest  emotion. 

It  was  not  so  dark  but  that  Avis,  looking  up 
through  the  storm,  saw  that  sensitive  expression  dart 
across  Ostrander's  face.  Then  the  lines  about  his 
mouth  subsided,  his  eye  cleared,  he  lifted  his  head, 
and  it  was  gone.  She  need  not  be  a  vain  woman, 
only  an  inexperienced  one,  who  reads  in  such  a 
facial  change  a  tenderness  which  it  by  no  means 
bespeaks.  Avis,  being  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
suffered  nothing  more  than  a  slight  feeling  of  sur- 
prise. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  added,  after  a  few  minutes'  pro- 
found attention  to  the  problem :  given  darkness,  a 
lady,  and  a  snow-drift  four  feet  high,  how  to  floun- 
der through  the  latter  with  that  grace  which  it  will 
be  a  pleasure  to  reflect  upon  to-morrow,  —  "I  sup- 
pose you  now  went  home,  and  thought  what  a  rude 
American  you  had  seen.  I  was  glad  when  I  saw 
you  come  into  the  Chaucer  Club.  I  have  always 
felt  that  I  owed  you  an  apology  for  that  stare." 

_He  said  this  with  the  manner  of  one  who  is  con- 
scious of  having  said  an  uncommon  thing,  and  has- 
tens to  wrench  out  of  it  a  common-place  signifi- 
cance. 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Avis  with  composure. 
"  I  owe  the  making  of  a  very  satisfactory  little 


88  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

sketch  to  you.  I  put  you  into  sepia,  on  a  neutral 
gray.  Couture  took  a  great  fancy  to  that  sepia/' 

1  i  If  I  have  been  in  any  sense  the  cloak  across 
which  3rour  royal  feet  have  stepped  upon  the  muddy 
road  to  glor}',  or  the  n^al  road  to  glory,  or  —  my 
metaphor  is  gone  mad,  and  I  give  it  up,"  said  Os- 
trander, with  the  carelessness  which  conceals  rather 
than  expresses  meaning.  "At  all  events,  I  am 
glad  you  made  the  sketch.  We  are  getting  along 
bravely.  Are  you  very  cold?  " 

"Not  much.  Only  my  hand  which  I  bruised. 
Thank  you  !  No,  I  should  be  very  unhappy  to  take 
your  glove.  How  is  my  bird,  Mr.  Ostrander?  " 

"  I  forgot  the  bird!" 

He  sought  for  it  very  gently  with  his  free  hand, 
and  said,  — 

"It  lives.  It  is  quite  warm.  But  it  does  not 
stir." 

"Why,"  said  Avis  as  they  drew  in  sight  of  her 
father's  house,  —  "  why  should  we  disturb  my  father 
loy  telling  him  about  that  slip  upon  the  rock  ?  ' ' 

"Why,  indeed?  You  are  very  wise  and  right. 
We  will  not  talk  of  it." 

"I  have  been  away  from  him  so  many  years," 
said  Avis  in  the  almost  timid  way  she  had  when  her 
gentlest  feeling  was  aroused,  ' '  that,  now  I  am  come 
back,  I  find  I  like  to  spare  him  all  possible  pain, 
even  a  little  one  like  this.  And  now,  Mr.  Ostrander, 
how  is  my  bird  ?  ' ' 

The  light  from  the  hall  fell  full  upon  his  face 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  89 

when  they  stopped  without  the  door.  The  snow  lay 
lightly  on  his  beard  and  bright  hair.  He  looked  like 
a  young  Scandinavian  god. 

He  slipped  his  hand  very  tenderly  under  his  shaggy 
coat  as  he  stood  there  looking  down  at  her. 

"  I  hope  all  is  well  with  the  poor  thing/'  said  he. 
But  the  bird  upon  his  heart  lay  dead. 

Avis  was  in  no  possible  sense  what  we  call  a 
woman  of  moods  :  her  mouth  and  eyes  were  too  har- 
monious, and  her  chin  too  broadly  cut.  Yet  she  had 
as  many  phases  as  the  moon.  So  (as  unconscious 
of  the  lack  of  originality  in  his  fancy  as  most  excited 
young  creatures  to  whom  all  earth's  dull,  old  figures 
are  sublimated  by  the  moment's  fever)  Ostrander 
thought,  when  she  came  down  to  supper  that  night, 
gone,  by  some  ten  minutes'  magic,  out  of  her  wet 
wrappings  into  a  wonderful  warmth  and  delicacy. 
Even  the  scent  of  her  dress  as  she  swept  past  him  — 
a  fine  French  perfume,  but  one  which  he  could  not 
associate  with  any  pretty  Parisian  whom  he  had 
ever  met  —  added  to  this  impression.  At  once  she 
had  become  a  housed,  sheltered,  hearth-loving  crea- 
ture. The  soul  of  the  storm  lingered  only  upon  her 
hair  and  eyes.  There  was  a  certain  native  daintiness 
about  Avis,  distinct  from  the  inevitable  elegance  of  a 
young  lady  recently  returned  from  Paris,  and  hardly 
to  be  expected  of  the  artistic  temperament.  She 
had  her  mother  to  thank  for  that,  aunt  Chloe  said. 
It  was  still  well  remembered  in  Harmouth  that  the 


90  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

professor's  wife  wore  colors  that  no  reading-club 
would  have  thought  of  combining,  and  laces  of  a 
very  unintellectual  character. 

Ostrander  did  not  recollect  having  seen  any  other 
woman  in  such  a  dress  as  Miss  Dobell  wore  that 
evening.  It  was  of  white  French  flannel,  very  fine 
and  soft,  somewhat  loosely  worn,  and  unornamented. 
She  was  standing  by  her  father's  open  fire  when  he 
came  back  from  his  room  at  the  college,  and  was 
ushered  by  aunt  Chloe  into  the  study.  Her  eyes 
only  moved  to  meet  him.  She  looked  slender  and 
shining  as  a  Doric  column. 

"  Ah,"  said  the  professor,  "  I  am  more  than  glad 
to  see  you  here.  I  do  not  recall,  Mr.  Ostrander, 
whether  you  have  been  in  my  study  before.  So? 
Then  you  will  have  seen  my  engraving  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam,—  Avis,  be  good  enough  to  turn  on  the  gas  a 
little,  — the  only  copy  from  that  plate,  sir,  to  be  found 
in  this  country,  I  believe." 

Ostrander  was  hastening  to  say  that  there  was,  he 
fancied  —  or  was  it  fancy?  —  a  remarkable  likeness, 
when  Avis  interrupted  him  by  saying,  with  an  irrele- 
vance which  surprised  the  professor  in  a  girl  of  Avis' s 
really  coherent  mind,  that  aunt  Chloe  had  sprained 
her  wrist ;  had  tried  to  lift  her  great  ivy-jar.  Aunt 
Chloe  tended  her  flowers  as  if  they  were  all  orphans, 
and  loved  that  ivy  like  her  own  soul. 

"I  hav^e  never  thought  myself  lacking  in  the  com- 
moner forms  of  humanity^"  observed  Avis,  her  eyes 
electric  with  merriment ;  4 '  but  I  certainly  could  not 
sit  up  nights  with  a  sick  ivy." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  91 

"It  was  a  German  ivy,"  said  aunt  Chloe  plain- 
tively; "and  I  thought  it  would  freeze.  I  can't 
sleep  warm  if  I  know  my  plants  are  cold.  Did  you 
never  notice,  Mr.  Ostrander,  how  an  arbutelon,  for 
instance,  will  shiver?  It  will  shiver  like  a  thorough- 
bred spaniel  at  a  draught  of  air.  But  the  ivy  was 
heavy.  And  Avis,  I  think  you  must  pour  the  tea, 
if  you  please,  my  dear." 

Ostrander  was  not  sorry  to  see  Avis  pour  the  tea ; 
but  he  recommended  an  arnica  bandage  to  aunt 
Chloe  with  much  graceful  sympathy,  discussing  the 
continental  pronunciation  with  the  professor,  mean- 
while. 

Ostrander  had  no  deeply  preconceived  repulsions 
to  women  with  "  careers,"  holding  it  the  first  duty 
of  an  educated  man  to  cultivate  a  tolerance  of 
opinion,  especially  in  matters  in  which  opinion  most 
unconsciously  cooled  into  prejudice ;  but  he  had, 
without  doubt,  his  preconceived  ideals.  Among 
these  he  found  that  he  had  never  placed  a  young 
woman  in  a  white  French  evening-dress,  pouring  tea 
at  a  cultivated  table,  with  a  singularly  pretty  arm. 

After  tea  —  for  the  simple  habits  of  the  Christian 
family  were  not  often  disturbed  for  a  quiet  guest, 
and  especially  not  for  any  pet  of  the  professor's, 
like  this  young  man,  —  Avis  went  to  her  accustomed 
seat  upon  a  low  cricket  at  her  father's  feet,  and,  sit- 
ting in  the  full  firelight  with  bent  head,  read  the 
Psalm  for  evening  prayers .  A  beautiful  womanliness 
was  upon  her.  She  seemed  to  be  wrapped  in  it  like 
a  Naiad  in  a  silver  shell. 


92  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Ostrander  yielded  himself  to  the  domestic  spirit 
of  the  evening  with  the  rare  relief  which  a  homeless 
and  restless  man  alone  can  know.  He  sat  with  his 
hand  above  his  eyes,  and  listened  to  her  reverent 
young  voice. 

After  prayers,  the  professor  monopolized  the  con* 
versation,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  ladies,  —  a  liar- 
mouth  habit  of  which  his  wife  had  nearly  succeeded 
in  breaking  him ;  but  aunt  Chloe  supposed  that  was 
the  way  in  ah1  literary  families,  and  a  lady  could 
always  take  her  work  while  gentlemen  talked. 

Ostrander  did  not  object  to  this  form  of  parlor, 
etiquette,  however,  just  then.  He  would  have  been 
quite  satisfied  if  he  need  not  have  exchanged  another 
word  with  Miss  Dobell  that  evening.  It  suited  his 
mood  to  steal  a  look  at  her  now  and  then  in  silence. 
Even  to  watch  her,  almost  reduced  his  thought  of 
her  to  garrulousness.  In  the  beautiful  scholastic 
sense  which  wise  men  give  to  our  common  phrase, 
he  had  become  conscious  of  her.  He  was  made 
aware  of  the  variations  in  her  voice,  her  attitude, 
her  glance,  as  he  was  made  aware  of  the  fluctuations 
of  his  own  breath.  He  felt  her  presence  in  the  room 
as  he  felt  aunt  Chloe's  rose-hyacinth  in  the  atmos- 
phere. 

"Was  the  repressed  excitement  of  a  shared  and 
unspoken  experience  upon  her  as  upon  himself?  She 
spoke  but  little,  and  wandered  about  the  room, 
when  aunt  Chloe,  from  over  her  knitting,  recom- 
mended some  light  crochet-work,  which  she  was  sure 
Mr.  Ostrander  would  excuse. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  93 

How  superb  she  was  in  that  white  wool!  as  if 
she  had  wrapped  herself  in  a  snow-cloud  ;  as  if  the 
very  soul  of  the  storm,  gone  mad  as  a  lover  to  in- 
fold her,  turned  warm  as  the  June  to  win  her,  had 
followed  her  in  from  death  and  the  freezing  sea. 

She  was  standing  with  her  face  bent,  and  buried 
in  the  hyacinth,  when  aunt  Chloe  presently  called 
her:  — 

"  Avis,  Mr.  Ostrander  wants  to  get  a  portrait 
done  for  a  birthday  present  to  his  mother." 

"Mr.  Ostrander,  then,  is  a  devoted  sou?"  said 
Avis,  lifting  her  face. 

"  So  I  was  telling  him.  And  we  have  so  few! 
Good  sons  have  gone  out  of  fashion,  like  hollyhocks. 
I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  give  him  the  sittings, 
Avis.  The  studio  will  soon  be  quite  comfortable 
with  the  May  sun." 

11  How  is  it,  Avis?  "  said  the  professor,  thrusting 
his  hands  into  his  pockets,  and  stopping  in  his  walk 
across  the  room  to  look  at  her.  "  Can  you  gratify 
Mr.  Ostrander,  my  dear,  do  you  think?  " 

It  was  when  Ostrander  was  wading  back  to  his 
rooms,  beating  his  way  through  the  damp  and 
heavy  drifts  with  the  good  temper  of  a  man  who  has 
passed  an  exhilarating  evening,  that  he  saw,  turning 
the  sharp  corner  upon  the  college  green,  a  slight 
figure  struggling  before  him  in  the  snow.  It  stag- 
gered with  the  helplessness  of  a  creature  encum- 
bered by  heavy  swathing  of  the  limbs,  as  only  a 


94  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

woman  mummied  in  her  skirts  can  stagger.  The 
poor  soul  was  slightly  dressed,  and  carried  a  little 
bag  such  as  is  carried  by  agents  or  female  peddlers, 
—  a  sight  much  less  common  fifteen  years  ago  than 
now.  As  Ostrander  approached,  she  tripped,  and 
fell  heavily  across  the  snow,  bruising  her  head,  he 
thought,  against  a  lamp-post  as  she  fell.  Inwardly 
wondering  of  how  many  more  damsels  in  distress  he 
was  elected  to  be  the  knight-errant  before  that 
storm  was  over,  with  a  lurking  smile  upon  his  lips, 
but  instant  pity  in  his  eyes,  he  sprang,  and  lifted  the 
young  woman  to  her  feet. 

As  she  turned  to  thank  him,  the  light  from  the 
street-lamp  fell  full  upon  her  face  and  his.  They 
looked  steadily  at  one  another  before  she  spoke. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  95 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"  The  clearest  skies  are  those 

That  farthest  off  appear 
To  birds  of  strongest  wing. 

The  dearest  loves  are  those 
That  no  man  can  come  near 
With  his  best  following." 

K.  K.  WEEKS. 

THE  subtle  footsteps  of  the  spring  stole  on. 
The  Chaucer  Club  adjourned  till  the  "months 
with  the  r "  should  reinstate  the  oyster-suppers. 
The  German  lessons  —  since  now  a  yachting-party 
offered  its  own  peculiar  type  of  culture,  and  a  little 
wider  variet}^  in  those  forms  of  stimulus  which  no 
intelligent  young  lady  is  ashamed  to  admit  receiv- 
ing from  the  masculine  mind,  —  the  German  lessons 
flagged.  The  deepening  sun  upon  the  picture  of 
Sir  William  wandered  through  the  open  window  by 
which  the  professor  had  wheeled  his  study-chair. 
Aunt  Chloe's  geraniums  were  promoted  to  the  gar- 
den, and  aunt  Chloe's  soul  to  the  seventh  heaven 
of  tender  garden  cares  and  hopes  and  fears,  which 
those  only  know  whose  nature  bourgeons  with  "  the 
green  things  growing,-"  and  with  these  alone. 

And  in  the  studio,  Couture 's  pet  pupil  sat  paint- 
ing the  very  successful  portrait  of  her  first  American 
sitter. 


96  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Her  great  master,  if  he  might  have  strolled  through 
the  old-fashioned  garden,  and  into  the  snug  summer- 
house  which  Avis  had  levied  for  her  uses,  would 
possibly  have  said,  with  a  keen  glance  from  face  to 
face, — 

"  Tres  bien  !  You  give  Mademoiselle  a  long- 
haired student.  She  gives  you  Thor,  Odin,  Balder. 
Mademoiselle  idealizes .  Mademoiselle  has  a  future . ' ' 

It  seemed  to  Mademoiselle,  meanwhile,  that  in 
strange  senses,  tingling  as  an  unmastered  science, 
and  blinding  as  an  unknown  art,  and  solemn  as  an 
untrod  world,  her  future,  through  the  budding  of  that 
spring,  advanced  to  meet  her. 

She  became  electrically  prescient  of  it.  She 
throbbed  to  it  as  if  perplexing  magnetisms  played 
upon  the  lenient  May  air.  It  was  as  if  she  held 
it  in  her  young  hand  as  she  held  the  violet-buds 
that  Ostrander  brought  her.  He  brought  her  only 
buds. 

"  I  am  so  glad  to  be  at  work  !  "  she  said,  —  "so 
gravely,  greatly  glad !  " 

She  said  this  to  herself.  It  was  necessary  to  say 
something.  She  did  not  remember  to  have  worked 
so  excitedly  before.  She  thrilled  to  her  task  as  the 
violet  thrilled  to  the  sun.  Never  had  she  seemed  to 
conceive  or  to  construct,  with  her  imagination  so  re- 
cipient and  docile  to  her  inspirations.  Never  had 
she  seemed  before  to  be  in  such  harmony  with  the 
infinite  growing  and  yearning  of  Nature. 

She  stood  like  the  child  of  the  desert,  with  her  ear 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  97 

at  the  lips  of  the  sphinx.  The  whole  world_had 
leaped  into  bloom  to  yield  her  the  secrets  of  beauty. 
She  spread  the  spring  showers  upon  her  palette,  and 
dipped  her  brushes  in  the  rainbow. 

As  for  her  sitter,  he  served  as  well  as  another  to 
pass  the  mood  of  the  May  weather  ;  better,  perhaps, 
with  that  stimulating,  legendary  type  of  beauty. 
She  found  much  beauty  —  and  more,  the  better  she 
knew  it  —  in  Philip  Ostrander's  face.  She  told  him 
so  one  day,  with  a  naivete  which  enchanted  him. 

"I  rarely  meet,"  said  the  young  artist,  "with 
beauty  in  men.  I  have  known  several  beautiful 
women." 

"And  other  women,  it  seems,  know  beautiful 
men,"  urged  Ostrander,  gracefully  evasive  of  the 
compliment,  though  he  felt  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul 
the  utter  absence  of  that  which  would  have  given  it 
a  distinct  value  to  him.  This  }^oung  woman  re- 
garded the  contour  of  a  man's  face  precisely  as  a 
ph}Tsician  regards  a  hectic  flush  or  a  bilious  eye-ball. 
It  was  the  intricate  strife  of  the  artist  with  the 
woman  in  her  which  had  been  the  bewitchment  of 
that  look  surprised  in  the  Madeleine.  He  rather 
hoped  some  sudden,  abashed  consciousness  would 
overtake  her  calm,  professional  scrutiny :  he  had 
often  wished  so  while  the  portrait  had  been  in  prog- 
ress. Just  now  he  would  have  been  glad  to  see  her 
blush,  perhaps.  But  she  went  serenely  on. 

11 1  know,  I  know  !  But  I  never  could  understand 
it,  When  I  was  a  girl,  and  the  other  girls  talked 


98  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

about  the  handsome  college-boj'S,  I  was  greatly 
puzzled.  I  did  not  know  but  I  was  color-blind 
about  it,  or  that  my  eyes  were  made  with  different 
lenses.  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  just  like  other 
women,"  added  Avis  simply,  dipping  her  brush  with 
deep  absorption  in  the  madder-rose. 

"  Thank  Heaven !  "  said  Ostrander,  in  a  low,  de- 
lirious tone. 

Avis  lifted  her  eyes  with  a  startled  change  of  ex- 
pression, holding  the  tube  of  brilliant  color  like  an 
arrested  thought  upon  the  air. 

"  I  did  not  understand  you,"  she  said  gravely. 

"  I  said  you  were  in  danger  of  dropping  the  mad- 
der-rose. There  !  Allow  me.  Do  not  stir :  it  will 
hit  the  hem  of  your  dress." 

He  stooped  to  pick  it  up,  her  dress,  as  he  did  so, 
falling  with  a  faint  electric  touch  against  his  hand. 
Raising  his  head  suddenly,  he  surprised  her  eyes 
upon  him.  They  were  wide,  grave,  imperious. 
They  made  him  think  of  a  Juno  that  he  knew,  and 
thought  the  grandest  in  the  world.  Was  it  the  sen- 
sitiveness of  a  young  man's  wounded  vanity  that  led 
him  to  fancy  that  her  lips  parted  with  something  of 
the  dumb  and  delicate  scorn  that  the  lips  of  that 
Ludovisi  Juno,  alone  of  all  sculpture  that  he  had 
ever  seen,  commanded? 

In  truth,  Avis  had  come  home  with  large  segments 
of  her  nature  not  altogether  occupied  by  young  Scan- 
dinavian divinities  ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  all  the  gods 
of  Olympus  would  have  appealed  to  her  sensibilities 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  99 

on  any  sustained  scale,  just  then,  other  than  as  af- 
fording more  or  less  fresh  material  for  "  a  charcoal," 
' ' a  memory , "  or  "a  sienna. ' ' 

As  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  said,  in  the  hideous 
fable,  to  suck  the  heart's  blood  of  the  living,  so, 
without  doubt,  a  great  purpose  sprung  too  early  upon 
a  young  life  may  dehumanize  it,  —  sometimes  does. 
It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  effect  of  substi- 
tuting an  intellectual  for  an, emotional  pagsion  in  the 
absorbent  phases  of  a  woman's  life  which  are  cov- 
ered by  the  decade  from  sixteen  to  twenty-six.  Such 
an  experience  may  prune  the  nature,  as  we  are  told 
that  hardship  does  that  of  certain  savage  races,  re- 
tarding their  tenderer  impulses.  While  the  other 
girls  talked  of  love  and  lovers,  Avis  sat  and  sketched 
their  shy,  expectant  faces.  Yet  nothing  could  be 
more  fatal  to  horticulture  than  to  mistake  the  re- 
tarded for  the  stunted  or  the  sterile  growth.  Avis' s 
auundant  being  had  suffered  no  depletion.  She 
was  alive  to  the  nerves  of  her  soul.  She  was 
still  an  unwon  woman.  She  felt  even  glad  some- 
times, that  there  were  men  in  the  world  who  loved 
her.  She  liked  to  think  that  they  loved  her 
because  they  could  not  help  it.  She  wondered 
why  it  was,  that,  the  swifter  the  retreat  of  her 
nature  from  them  had  been,  the  surer  had  been 
the  advance  of  theirs.  Shb  was  sorry  about  it  when 
it  happened ;  but  she  had  no  coquettish  conscious- 
ness of  having  been  in  fault.  And  she  thought  very 
humbly  of  her  power  to  mar  the  music  of  any  other 


100  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

life.  Men  usually  married.  And  it  was  pleasant  to 
remember  that  she  was  not  unlovely  or  unlovable. 
Sometimes,  when  she  sat  before  her  easel,  forecast- 
ing her  fair  future,  she  felt  suddenly  glad,  with  a 
downright  womanish  thrill,  that  she  was  so  sure  of 
the  beauty  and  patience  of  her  purpose ;  that  she 
was  not  to  live  a  solitary  life  because  no  other  had 
been  open  to  her.  Perhaps  the  woman  does  not 
live  for  whpm  the  kingdoms  of  earth  and  the  glory 
of  them  could  blunt  the  tooth  of  that  one  little 
poisoned  thought. 

And  Avis  did  not  mean  to  marry :  that  was  a 
matter  of  course.  It  was  not  necessary  to  talk 
about  it :  young  women  were  apt  to  say  something 
of  the  sort,  she  believed.  She  had  never  meant  to 
many,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  never  meant  to. 
She  acted  upon  this  consciousness  as  reticently  as 
she  did  upon  the  combinations  of  her  palette,  and  as 
naturally  as  she  did  upon  the  reflex  motion  of  her 
muscles. 

But  the  silent  footsteps  of  the  spring  crept  on. 
It  was  pleasant  in  the  garden  studio.  The  square 
little  building  with  the  Gothic  door  and  porch,  and 
long,  low  windows,  stood  within  call  of  the  house, 
yet  was  quite  isolated  by  the  budding  trees,  an 
island  in  a  sea  of  leaves.  It  gave  a  sense  of  soli- 
tude to  the  fancy,  which  was  rather  heightened  than 
lessened  by  the  close  presence  of  unseen  life.  When 
aunt  Chloe,  who  had  the  best  intentions  in  the 
tforld  in  the  matter  of  matronizing  Avis  through  this 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  101 

portrait,  trotted  in  and  out  in  her  short  garden-gown, 
it  seemed  somehow  only  to  deepen  their  isolation. 
When  she  suddenly  remembered  that  the  lilies  were 
to  have  been  bedded  this  morning,  or  wondered  if 
Jacobs  had  let  the  cows  into  the  corn-patch,  or  was 
afraid  the  newspaper  over  the  wisteria  had  been 
blown  away,  or  was  sure  Julia  would  get  the  dum- 
plings underdone,  or  the  professor  get  home  from 
lecture  before  the  study  was  dusted,  and,  begging 
Mr.  Ostrander  to  excuse  her  for  a  minute,  van- 
ished for  an  hour,  Avis,  looking  gently  after  her, 
used  to  think  of  some  odd,  old  words:  "  Then  she 
departed  into  her  own  country  by  another  way." 
Turning  to  Ostrander,  she  would  find  his  eyes  upon 
her;  but  his  lips  said  nothing.  The  robins  came 
and  peered  at  them  with  curious  glance  upon  the 
window-ledge  ;  a  ground-sparrow  who  had  built  her 
nest  just  beneath  the  wooden  doorstep  twittered  in 
a  tender  monotone  ;  the  boughs  of  the  budding  apple- 
trees  hit  the  glass  with  slender  finger-tips,  and  red- 
dened if  one  looked  at  them ;  the  dumb  sunlight 
crawled  inch  by  inch,  like  a  creeping  child,  across 
the  steps,  and  in  upon  the  floor ;  the  air  was  full  of 
the  languors  of  unseen  buds  ;  far  and  faint  upon  the 
shore  summoned  the  rapture  of  the  hidden  sea. 

lie  could  understand,  Ostrander  thought,  why  i* 
was  given  to  the  first  man  to  woo  the  first  woman 
in  a  garden.  Out  of  all  the  untried  moods  of  the 
new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,  — the  gloom  of  the 
forest,  the  strength  of  the  hills,  the  stir  of  the  moors, 


102  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

or  the  glory  of  the  sea,  —  what  could  have  taught 
that  perfect  primeval  creature  the  slow,  sweet  lesson 
of  love's  surrender,  like  the  temper  of  one  budding 
flower  ? 

Eve,  he  had  always  fancied,  was  rather  hard  to 
win. 

And  now  the  hurrying  footsteps  of  the  spring 
swept  on. 

In  the  ripening  grass  the  clover-buds  appeared, 
bursting  into  color  impetuously,  like  kisses  that  a 
child  throws  to  the  sky.  In  the'  pansy-bed  beside 
the  summer-house,  aunt  Chloe's  old-fashioned  lady's- 
delights  lifted  their  impressive  faces,  and  sat  like 
philosophers  in  the  sun,  asking  forever  a  question  to 
which  no  man  could  reply.  The  imperfectly  defined 
scent  of  bads  faded  from  an  ah-  gone  drunk  with 
yielding  blossoms.  One  day,  as  Avis  sat  painting 
busity,  there  came  a  stir  upon  the  apple-tree,  as  if  a 
spirit  had  troubled  the  soul  of  it.  A  fine,  almost 
inaudible  sound,  like  a  murmur  of  appeal  or  remon- 
strance, crossed  the  boughs  ;  and  a  shower  of  blos- 
soms fell  in  upon  her. 

"Every  petal  is  a  perfumed  shell,"  said  Avis, 
drawing  her  breath. 

44  See  how  they  drift  to  their  places,  drawn  by  the 
currents,  compelled  by  the  currents,  of  an  unseen 
tide  !  "  answered  Ostrander. 

His  voice  had  the  tense  resonance  which  precedes 
tremulousness. 

"This  means,"  he  said,  as  he  stooped  to  gather 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  103 

a  leaf  which  had  fallen  from  her  hair,  and  was  sink- 
ing with  a  reluctant  motion  to  the  floor,  — ' i  this 
means  that  May  is  past,  and  June  has  come  to  us." 

He  said  this  in  his  penetrative  undertone,  —  that 
tone  which  may  mean  any  thing  or  nothing,  but  which, 
in  Ostrander,  gave  one  the  impression  that  he  spoke 
in  a  delicate,  spiritual  cipher,  to  which  it  were  a 
dulness  amounting  to  grossness  not  to  find  the 
key.  He  thought,  as  he  spoke,  that  a  faint  flush 
stirred  across  A  vis's  listening  face  ;  but,  if  so,  it  was 
transparent  as  the  color  of  the  petal  in  his  hand, 
and  as  swift  to  fade. 

"  I  have  been  very  slow  about  the  portrait, " 
returned  Avis,  hastening  to  speak.  "  I  worked 
more  rapidly  with  a  master.  At  the  first  plunge 
into  a  solitary  struggle,  a  self-distrust,  which  I  can 
neither  explain  nor  avoid,  comes  upon  me  now  and 
then,  like  the  cramp  upon  a  swimmer ;  yet  I  am 
quite  sure  I  am  doing  better  work.  If  we  had  mul- 
tiplied the  sittings  a  little,  the  picture  would  have 
been  —  should  have  been  —  finished  before  the  apple- 
blossoms  fell." 

"Pray  do  not  misunderstand  me,"  urged  Ostran- 
der gently.  "How  could  .you  for  one  moment 
think"  — 

"  Mr.  Ostrander,"  interrupted  Avis,  with  a  sud- 
den piercing  candor  in  her  eyes,  "  I  did  not  mis- 
understand you." 

"Then  tell  me,"  pleaded  Ostrander,  caressing 
the  apple-blossom  which  lay  quivering  across  his 


104  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

hand  like  a  thing  that  might  fly,  —  "  tell  me  what  I 
would  have  said.  I  am  struck  dumb  to-day." 

"  I  think  you  meant  to  say  that  there  is  a  calendar 
for  all  kind  thought  that  people  acquire  of  one  an- 
other," said  Avis  quietly.  "All  friendliness  is  a 
progression.  A  friend  is  a  marvel,  a  creation,  a 
discovery,  a  growth  like  a  year;  and  June  will 
follow  May." 

"A  friend,  a  friend!"  said  the  young  man, 
bringing  his  hand  slowly  across  his  eyes.  u  How 
often  do  you  find  the  June  in  the  soul  of  a  friend?  " 

"  I  am  not  sure,"  said  Avis,  laying  down  her 
brushes,  "  that  we  either  of  us  quite  know  what  we 
are  trying  to  say.  Strictly,  since  you  ask  me,  I 
must  think  my  life  has  been  barren  of  that  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  a  friend  would  put  into  it.  Of  course, 
one  is  always  giving  and  receiving  a  sort  of  service 
and  tenderness.  But  I  see  many  women  find  the 
closest  sympathies  and  the  deepest  comfort.  Per- 
haps I  have  been  necessarily  too  much  absorbed  in 
my  own  affairs  to  cultivate  that  divine  self-oblivion 
which  is  the  first  condition  of  friendship." 

She  took  up  her  brushes  with  a  solitary  look ;  but, 
before  Ostrander  could  answer,  it  had  turned  into  an 
expression  which  deterred  him  from  speech,  like  an 
outstretched  hand.  He  had  never  seen  her  look  so 
seriously  annoyed,  nay,  disturbed.  He  had  heard 
women  talk  about  friendship  before :  he  had  never 
seen  one  who  did  not  mellow  under  the  subject  like 
a  September  afternoon.  But  Miss  Dobell  froze 
before  the  sunbeam  fell. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  10o 

In  truth,  Avis  was  bitterly  annoyed  with  herself. 
She  recoiled  from  her  little  innocent  impulse  as  if  it 
had  held  the  compromising  power  of  an  imprudence, 
and  felt  the  scathing  hurt  which  a  delicate  nature 
receives  from  the  re-action  of  all  misplaced  ardor. 

She  had  not  reached  the  age  —  perhaps  with  those 
serious  eyes  of  hers  would  be  long  in  doing  so  — 
when  we  can  catch  only  the  ludicrous  angle  in  the 
sight  of  a  woman  talking  friendship  with  a  man. 

But  a  friend,  —  a  friend.  She  had  ah1  owed  this 
man  a  momentary  privilege,  sacred  and  mystical  to 
her  as  her  maidenly  dim  vision  of  the  rights  of 
plighted  love.  He  had  overtaken  her  upon  the 
boundary  of  a  country  holy  as  heaven,  and  human 
as  Eden.  Avis  Dobell,  in  her  nurtured,  loved,  and 
eventful,  but,  as  she  truly  said,  most  solitary  life, 
had  dreamed  of  the  heart  of  a  friend  with  more 
passion  and  more  reserve  than  most  women  dedicate 
to  the  lover  of  their  young  ideal.  But,  like  Frigga, 
the  wife  of  Odin,  who  foreknew,  but  never  foretold, 
the  destinies  of  men,  she  had  the  silence  of  her 
inspirations. 

She  had  never  told  anybody  that  she  felt  solitary 
before  ;  she  had  never  chattered  about  sympathy,  or 
cackled  about  being  imperfectly  understood ;  an 
obstinate  weakness  in  people,  which  she  hated 
as  she  did  some  of  her  tubes  of  paint,  always 
telling  on  the  colors  of  character,  killing  superior 
values  by  its  terrible  encroachment.  All  forms  of 
self-pity,  like  Prussian-blue,  should  be  sparingly 
used. 


106  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

A  friend?  Her  friend?  What  was  this  that  she 
had  done? 

She  felt  a  sudden  sick  emptiness  of  soul,  as  if  an 
artery  had  been  opened  there,  which  no  human 
power  could  ever  bind.  Her  whole  nature  crouched, 
as  if  it  would  spring  upon  this  man  who  had  severed 
it. 

She  had  returned  to  her  painting  quietly  enough. 
Ostrander  watched  her  between  his  half-closed, 
guarded  eyes.  " Beautiful  leopardess  !  "  he  said; 
but  he  did  not  say  it  aloud. 

And  now  it  was  June  in  the  garden  studio. 

Coy  was  privileged  one  day  to  come  in  when  Avis 
was  working  alone,  and  criticise  the  picture. 

"  I  suppose  I  must  make  a  fish-horn  of  my 
fingers  ? ' '  said  the  young  lady  plaintively.  ' i  I  never 
knew  an  artist  who  didn't  go  about  the  world  with 
one  hand  curled  up  at  his  eye  like  the  tin  fish-horns 
that  we  find  in  galleries  to  see  the  pictures  through. 
I  always  use  them  devoutly,  of  course  ;  but  I  never 
knew  what  they  were  there  for.  —  Yes,  Avis,  that  is 
a  likeness.  His  eyes  are  too  big,  and  his  nose  is 
too  little,  and  there's  too  much  —  what  do  you  call 
it  ?  —  action  ?  in  the  left  mustache  ;  but  it  is  a  very 
good  likeness.  How  much  you  have  improved  !  As 
Mrs.  Hogarth  says,  'It  will  be  quite  a  step  for 
Avis.'  " 

"I  do  not  mean  to  paint  portraits,"  said  Avis, 
coloring  slightly,  "though  Couture  said  I  probably 
must,  in  America.  But  I  have  different  plans :  at 


THE  STOE.Y  OF  AVIS.  107 

least  I  have  different  hopes.  Is  the  hair  too  highly 
lighted,  Coy?" 

"No."  Coy  uncurled  her  hand  like  a  long  spiral 
shell,  and  bent  her  two  keen,  unaided  eyes  upon 
Avis.  "No:  your  portrait  is  alive.  Flattered,  of 
course :  that  is  the  first  duty  of  a  portrait-painter. 
I  didn't  know  before,  that  Mr.  Ostrander  had  a 
mother.  I  wonder  if  she  gave  him  his  light  hair. 
He  looks  like  the  people  with  the  horrid  Norse 
names  in  the  poems  Longfellow's  taken  to  writing, 
—  Frigga,  and  those." 

"  Wasn't  Frigga  a  woman?  "  suggested  Avis. 

"  Oh,  well !  it's  all  the  same.  He  has  the  antique, 
Icelandic  style.  Mrs.  Hogarth  is  much  interested 
about  it." 

4 'Ah!"  said  Avis. 

' '  And  Barbara, "  added  Coy.  <  c'But  then  Barbara 
isn't  in  the  Faculty." 

Avis  made  no  reply. 

"  In  fact,  Avis,  I  may  say  that  the  greater  part  of 
Harmouth  is  familiar  with  the  history  and  progress 
of  this  portrait." 

"Oh!  I  suppose  so,"  said  Avis  wearily.  "It  is 
just  so  if  a  woman  writes  a  poem,  or  does  any  thing 
less  to  be  expected  than  making  One-Two-Three- 
Four  Cake.  I  must  submit  to  that :  I  work  so 
busily  and  so  happily,  that  I  seldom  think  about  it. 
But  I  suppose  the  woman  never  lived  who  would  not 
rather  work  in  the  shelter  of  a  desert  or  a  star." 

"Very  true,"  said  Coy  with  her  most  motherly 


108  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

air,  u  And  you  know,  Avis,  you  never  even  knew 
till  you  got  home,  that  Harmouth  had  engaged  you 
in  Florence  to  two  sculptors  and  one  artist  —  no, 
two  artists  and  a  sculptor,  besides  the  Italian 
count." 

"  You  are  wrong :  it  was  a  German  baron,"  said 
Avis  in  a  tone  of  scientific  precision. 

"At  all  events,"  said  Coy,  with  a  swift  glance 
from  the  portrait  to  Avis,  and  back  again  to  the 
portrait,  "  it  is  a  good  subject.  Mr.  Rose  says  they 
call  him  the  beauty  of  the  Faculty,  —  the  belle  of 
the  Faculty,  I  think  he  said.  Isn't  that  good?  The 
Antinous  of  a  college  Faculty !  I  should  as  soon 
look  for  a  Belvedere  in  the  third  tertiary  strata. 
Now,  there's  my  father.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  moth- 
er's kind  interference,  I  suppose  I  might  have 
looked  like  him ;  probably  should  have  been  propor- 
tionately intellectual.  Brains  and  beauty,  as  some 
one  was  saying  the  other  day  of  the  critic  and  the 
creator, — but  I  don't  tJiirik  that  was  Mr.  Rose, — 
seem  to  be  born  enemies." 

"  O  Coy  !  "  cried  Avis,  lighting.  u  Schiller  and 
Goethe  and  Burns  !  And  see  that  print  of  Robert- 
son behind  j^ou." 

"Very  likely,"  insisted  Coy.  "Indeed,  I  know 
girls  who  are  more  in  love  with  a  photograph  of 
Frederick  Robertson  to-day  than  they  ever  were 
with  a  live  man.  But  all  the  same  I  stake  my  point, 
and  refer  you  to  any  good  album  of  the  poets  —  or 
the  clergy.  As  a  rule,  a  man  can't  cultivate  his 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  109 

mustache  and  his  talents  impartially.  There's  apt 
to  be  something  askew  or  deficient  in  handsome 
men.  They  don't  do  great  things,  I  think,  more 
than  flowers  do  —  or  women." 

So,  with  a  pretty  ingenuity  that  she  had,  Coy 
worked  out  the  chance  barbs  which  had  annoyed 
Avis.  She  knew.  Avis  never  sat  so  still  with  just 
one  vein  throbbing  in  her  temple,  unless  she  were 
annoyed.  And  yet  the  June  budded  in  the  garden 
studio  ;  and  one  day  the  portrait  was  done. 

Avis,  feeling  the  inevitable  strain  which  falls  upon 
the  portrait- artist  with  the  completion  of  a  work, 
had  slept  lightly  and  little  for  several  nights.  The 
moment  when  the  subject  and  the  picture  are  first 
brought  face  to  face,  she  thought  no  experience 
could  ever  make  other  than  one  of  refined  nervous 
trial  to  her.  She  had  often  heard  artists  speak  of 
this ;  and  some  of  them  never  outgrew  it,  as  some 
great  orators  are  found  never  to  outgrow  the  sudden 
sick  bounding  of  the  heart,  and  trembling  of  the 
muscles  of  the  face,  which  the  first  sight  of  an  audi- 
ence produces. 

The  artist's  public,  narrowed  for  the  moment  into 
one  pair  of  human  eyes,  acquires  a  kind  of  omni- 
potence, like  that  of  the  sliding  wall  in  the  old  story 
of  martyrdom,  which,  towering  higher  as  each  day 
brings  it  nearer,  creeps  to  crash  the  victim  at  the 
appointed  hour. 

She  once  heard  Alexander  say  that  he  could  tell 
across  the  studio,  by  the  look  of  a  man's  back, 
whether  he  liked  his  picture. 


110  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

She  would  have  been  sorry  not  to  have  Mr.  Os- 
trander  like  the  portrait,  but  more  sorry,  she  thought, 
if  it  failed  to  please  that  lonely  old  mother  in  New 
Hampshire.  Mr.  Ostrander  had  said  that  he  was 
not  able  to  visit  his  mother  as  often  as  he  would 
like ;  the  state  of  his  health  requiring  a  different 
climate  in  the  brief  vacations  which  an  over-worked 
man  cannot  afford  not  to  expend  to  the  best  physi- 
cal advantage.  He  had  said  this  so  sadly,  that  Avis 
felt  very  sorry  for  him.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  till 
afterwards  to  be  very  sorry  for  the  old  lady. 

As  the  day  drew  on  when  she  was  to  show  him 
the  picture,  her  repressed  excitement  deepened. 
She  must  have  lost  more  sleep  than  she  had  sup- 
posed, so  taut  a  tension  seemed  to  have  been  sprung 
upon  her  nerves. 

During  the  night  she  lay  with  wide  eyes,  seeing 
the  souls  of  unwrought  pictures,  like  disembodied 
spirits,  sweep  by,  vision  upon  vision,  electrotyped 
upon  the  darkness  with  the  substance  of  wine  or 
opium  fantasies  ;  an  experience  which  chanced  to  her 
only  in  her  most  fertile  moods.  When  day  broke, 
a  strange  buoyancy  overtook  her.  Her  veins  seemed 
filled  with  a  fine  fire,  like  an  intoxication  which  she 
had  seen  follow  the  use  of  certain  rare  liqueurs 
among  Parisian  women,  —  juices  expressed  from 
subtle  fruits,  or  the  flowers  of  fruits,  after  which 
the  LachrymaB  Christ!  seemed  gross. 

Ostrander  came  after  tea  to  see  the  picture.  Her 
father  and  aunt  Chloe  had  just  been  in,  finding  them- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  Ill 

selves  sufficiently  pleased  with  the  work :  but  a 
Faculty  meeting,  involving  a  pet  quarrel  with  the 
Theological  Chair,  absorbed  the  professor ;  and  aunt 
Chloe  had  an  oleander  to  water  before  the  sun  had 
set.  The  artist  and  the  model  were  left  alone. 

It  was  still  quite  light.  The  birds,  in  unseen  nests, 
were  singing  themselves  to  sleep  with  a  lessening, 
crooning  cry,  as  children  do,  one  by  one  falling 
smothered  in  silence.  The  surf  upon  the  beach  had 
died ;  only  a  slight  sob  came  from  the  Harbor,  like 
that  of  a  creature  in  whom  a  great  struggle  had  worn 
to  a  peaceful  close.  There  was  not  wind  enough  to 
take  the  pollen  from  a  lily.  But  the  bees  were  awake, 
and  hummed  dizzily  among  the  flowers. 

' '  My  picture  must  be  the  final  cause  of  this  even- 
ing/' said  Ostrander  lightly,  as  they  approached  the 
easel;  for  he  felt  her  strained  nerves  beneath  her 
quiet  manner,  as  sailors  feel  the  prophecy  of  a  storm 
upon  a  sleeping  sea.  ' '  Such  a  coloring  will  define 
it  like  a  frame.  .  .  .  Ah  !  There.  Do  not  move  it. 
The  light  is  perfect  —  and  so  is  the  portrait.  Miss 
Dobell,  my  mother  will  be  satisfied." 

"  You  are  very  good  to  think  so,"  said  Avis,  draw- 
ing her  breath.  "  But  shall  you  be  satisfied?  " 

"More  than  satisfied,"  said  Ostrander,  after  a 
pause.  He  stood  for  a  few  moments,  silently  looking 
at  the  picture,  before  he  added  in  a  lower  tone, 
"  Much  more.  Do  I  really  look  like  that?  Out  of 
the  kind  eyes  of  a  friend?  .  .  .  Why!"  turning 
suddenly,  no  that  his  eyes  swept  her  face  and  figure, 


112  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"arc  you  so  tired?  You  are  worn  out.  I  have 
wearied  you.  Pray  do  not  stand." 

In  truth  Avis  trembled  heavily,  and  sank  into  the 
chair  which  he  had  brought. 

4 '  Did  you  mind  me  so  much  ? ' '  murmured  Os- 
trander,  with  a  daring  rapture  in  his  voice. 

"  I  am  ashamed  !  "  she  cried  impetuously ;  "  but 
it  is  a  nervousness  I  have  when  a  picture  comes  to  an 
end.  It  is  like  the  ending  of  a  life." 

Her  chance  words  fell  with  a  sudden  dreary  signi- 
ficance upon  them  both  as  they  sat  looking  across 
the  little  room,  which  seemed  to  be  absorbent  of  the 
intense  evening  light,  and  to  throb  like  a  topaz 
about  them. 

Avis  looked  up  at  him  with  timid,  candid  eyes.  It 
would  be  lonely  in  the  studio  to-morrow :  he  must 
know  that.  She  had  nothing  to  conceal  from  this 
man,  —  nothing,  nothing  !  She  repeated  the  word 
to  herself  with  a  sharpening  emphasis. 

But  she  rose  with  a  swift  motion,  as  if  she  dis- 
carded some  encroaching  thought,  and,  going  to  the 
doorway,  stood  there,  looking  out  across  the  garden. 

Ostrander  followed  her,  and  gently  said,  — 

"  Do  you  see  the  bees  on  the  wigelia?  " 

As  he  spoke,  one  circled  away  from  the  blush  of 
the  shrub,  and  hovered  over  her  with  a  slow,  intoxi- 
cated swing. 

"  You  have  flowers  about  you,"  he  said. 

"No —  yes:  I  had  forgotten.  It  is  the  rose  in 
my  hair." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  113 

She  flung  it  away  as  she  spoke  with  a  startled 
gesture. 

"  You  did  not  listen,"  said  Ostrander,  "  to  the 
bee.  Have  you  forgotten  the  pretty  thought  about 
the  growing  of  the  grass  and  budding  of  the  flow- 
ers ?  —  that  it  is  only  because  our  eyes  are  not  fine 
enough,  that  we  do  not  see  a  lily  open,  or  a  clover 
blooni ;  and  only  because  our  ears  are  not  delicate 
enough,  that  we  do  not  hear  the  sap  circulate  in  a 
rose-leaf,  or  the  heart  throb  in  the  insect  that 
alights  upon  it." 

"  I  have  thought  of  that,"  said  Avis  in  a  low 
voice,  "  every  day.  Sights  that  I  never  saw,  and 
sounds  that  I  never  heard,  it  seems  to  me  I  have 
heard  and  seen  this  spring.  Something  ails  the 
June.  I  have  felt  as  if  I  had  her  heart  beneath  a 
microscope  all  the  time.  It  is  the  being  at  home, 
I  think,  and  finding  my  father  so  well,  and  content 
to  see  me  hard  at  work.  And  I  am  always  excited 
when  I  am  at  work." 

"  No,"  said  Ostrander  in  a  changed  voice.  "  No, 
that  is  not  it.  I  believe  you  are  the  only  woman 
in  the  world  who  would  not  understand.  You  do 
not,  will  not,  will  not.  Ah,  hush !  For  all  that 
ails  the  June  is,  that  we  love  each  other." 

The  young  man  had  hardly  uttered  these  words 
before  he  would  have  given  a  ransom  to  recall  them. 

There  is  something  appalling,  at  times,  to  the  dull- 
est fancy,  in  the  inexorable  nature  of  human  speech. 
The  word  that  has  leaped  from  the  h'ps  has  gone,  as 


114  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

the  soul  goes  from  the  body ;  it  has  taken  on  the 
awful  rebellion  of  a  departed  spirit ;  to  recall  it  is 
like  recalling  the  dead.  A  moment  ago  your  friend 
was  yours,  to  have  and  to  hold,  to  kiss,  to  clasp. 
Now,  whose  is  he?  and  what?  and  where?  An 
instant  past,  your  thought  was  your  slave,  mute, 
subservient,  safe  :  now  it  defies  you. 

Ostrander  had  felt  himself  blindly  driven,  that 
evening,  towards  some  riot  of  expression,  circling 
slowly  to  it  as  the  bee  circled  to  the  flower  in  her 
abundant  hair.  He  had  struggled  against  this  im- 
pulse stoutly.  As  long  as  his  love  was  his  secret,  he 
felt  himself  to  be,  in  a  certain  mystical,  exalted  sense, 
the  master  of  this  beautiful,  defiant  creature.  He 
could  love  her.  /She  could  not  help  that.  Deeper 
than  all  the  moods  that  the  subtle  June  night  could 
ever  strike,  he  knew  now  that  he  loved  her.  It  was 
no  riot :  he  was  not  the  man  to  mistake  a  revolution 
for  a  riot ;  he  knew  the  difference. 

He  had  been  spurred  into  speech  by  an  instinct, 
daring  as  all  instincts  are,  and  as  full  of  danger. 

And  his  instinct  had  told  him  that  this  was  a 
woman  to  be  surprised,  not  wooed.  He  felt,  that,  if 
he  came  suppliant  to  her,  her  whole  being  would 
have  gathered  itself  like  a  queen,  and  receded 
from  him.  He  could  not  have  dallied  with  her,  or 
pleaded  with  her,  or  sighed  before  her :  that  seemed 
to  him  an  artificial  process,  adapted  for  the  winning 
of  other  women,  in  whose  tenderness  there  was 
usually  an  element  of  art.  They  might  melt  beneath 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  115 

it :  it  would  be  like  the  administration  of  ether  to 
the  grand  simplicity  of  her  soul ;  the  influence  meant 
to  subject  her  into  a  gentle  dream  would  prove  a, 
powerful  excitant ;  she  would  freeze  under  it,  like 
ice  mechanically  formed  at  mid-summer. 

He  could  not  think  of  her  as  a  woman  to  whom  a 
man  would  ever  say,  "  Learn  to  love  me.  Permit 
me  to  teach  you.  Suffer  me  to  be  near  you."  He 
would  as  naturally  have  said  to  a  beautiful  torrent, 
"  Seek  to  love  me ;  "  or  beckoned  to  some  sweet,  wild 
creature  of  the  woods,  expecting  it  to  fawn  at  his 
feet. 

The  young  man's  nature  had  leaped  to  entrap  her, 
as  the  hero  in  the  old  mythology  crossed  the  ring 
of  fire  that  surrounded  the  daughter  of  the  gods. 
When  he  had  made  the  plunge,  he  found  indeed  a 
woman  sleeping ;  but  it  was  a  woman  armed. 

Avis  lifted  her  eyes  slowly,  like  one  struggling 
with  a  fugitive  dream.  He  would  have  given  years 
of  his  life  at  that  moment  to  see  her  lip  tremble,  or 
her  eyelash  fall,  or  her  commanding  figure  shrink. 
She  did,  indeed,  change  color,  but  it  was  to  take  on 
the  color  of  white  fire.  And  then  the  antique  cast 
of  her  features  came  on.  She  looked  like  a  great, 
dumb,  protesting  goddess,  whom  some  light  hand  had 
just  dragged  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth  to  the 
glare  of  day. 

As  they  stood  there,  the  humming  of  the  bees  in 
the  wigelia-bush  reverberated,  and  seemed  to  fill  the 
world.  One  crawled  out  of  the  rose  which  she  had 


116  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

cast  away,  and  reeled  against  her  foot.  They  stooc 
just  as  his  broken  words  had  arrested  them,  fastened 
by  each  other's  eyes.  Suddenly  in  hers  there 
dawned  a  far,  startled  look :  she  began  to  turn  her 
neck  a  little  from  side  to  side,  like  a  deer  stirred 
by  the  sound,  but  not  as  yet  by  the  sight  of  pursuit, 
and  secretly  preparing  for  flight. 

Then  she  thrust  out  both  her  hands. 

"  I  deny  it !  V  said  the  woman. 

"I  assert  it!"  said  the  man.  They  faced  one 
another,  flashing  like  duellists. 

"You  assume,"  she  blazed,  stammering,  and 
struggling  with  her  words,  —  "  you  presume  —  what 
no  man ' '  — 

"I  presume  to  say  that  I  love  you,"  he  urged, 
swiftly  scintillating  into  a  dazzling  tenderness.  "  I 
quite  dare  to  say  that  I  love  you.  I  know  what  I 
am  saying.  I  love  you,  love  you !  " 

At  that  moment  his  words  seemed  to  her  a  kind 
of  unendurable  liberty,  like  personal  approach,  as 
if  he  had  touched  her  dress  or  hand.  Her  startled 
maidenhood  felt  a  wild  rebellion  in  just  standing 
there,  and  knowing  that  his  eyes  were  on  her.  Her 
own  had  now  fallen.  She  began  to  quiver  and  flush, 
but  it  was  not  with  tenderness.  She  was  caught 
between  two  fires.  She  could  not  have  told  just 
then  for  which  cause  she  felt  most  repellant  of  him, 
—  that  he  loved  her,  or  that  he  had  told  her  she  loved 
him.  A  kind  of  wide  recoil  from  him,  such  as  she 
had  never  known  from  any  man,  made  either  of  these 


THE  STORY  OF*  AVIS.  117 

suppositions  seem  to  her  like  usurpations ;  like  in- 
fringements of  some  blind,  sacred  law,  which  she  felt 
about  her,  like  the  evening  air,  and  would  seek  to 
understand  at  a  calmer  tune.  But  it  was  not  an 
instinct  of  repugnance  that  had  spread  in  a  moment  — 
there,  through  the  calm  June  afterglow  —  a  sudden 
impassable  distance  between  herself  and  this  man 
(an  antipathy  would  have  been  less  complex,  and  so 
more  tractable,  than  this  feeling)  :  it  was  a  rebound 
of  dismay ;  it  was  at  once  blindly  instinctive  and 
rigidly  measured,  like  that  which  one  makes  before 
a  plunge. 

No  man  had  ever  spoken  to  her  like  this  man. 
His  words  had  the  character  of  events.  She  felt  as 
if  she  had  in  one  moment  put  a  great  fact  behind 
her,  whose  effects  the  whole  of  life  could  not  undo. 
What  was  the  weakness  in  her  nature  that  had  made 
this  experience  possible?  and  what  the  tumult  there 
which  made  it  memorable,  stamped  it  upon  her  like 
the  mould  of  a  great  sorrow,  or  a  wild  joy? 

Her  startled  look  had  broadened  now,  and  bright- 
ened, like  a  light  coming  near  and  nearer  to  one 
through  the  undergrowth  of  a  dense  forest.  There 
was  even  a  kind  of  appeal  in  her  voice,  though  it 
was  with  ceremonious  dignity  that  she  said,  — 

"  I  hope,  Mr.  Ostrander,  that  you  may  find  your- 
self as  much^  mistaken  in  your  own  feeling  as  you 
have  been,  so  extraordinarily,  in  mine.  It  will 
undoubtedly  be  so.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  over- 
estimate the  depth  of  a  passing  influence. " 


118  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"I  have  over-estimated  nothing,"  persisted  he 
doggedly.  "  And  I  am  mistaken  in  nothing.  Ah, 
hush !  Let  me  speak ;  let  me  explain.  You  do  not 
understand  yourself  or  me.  You  recoil ;  you  are 
angry  with  me.  I  was  abrupt,  I  was  uncouth,  I 
was  unreasonable ;  but  before  God  I  believe  I  was 
right.  Turn  to  me  one  moment.  Let  me  see  your 
eyes.  Let  me  beg  of  you  to  listen  "  — 

"I  wonder,  Mr.  Ostrander,"  said  aunt  Chloe, 
panting  up  across  the  pansy-bed,  "if  I  might  so 
greatly  trouble  you  as  to  help  me  one  moment  with 
the  grape-vine.  — And,  Avis,  I  am  sorry ;  but  there 
are  callers :  I  think  it  is  Mr.  Allen  and  his  sister ; 
and  the  grape-vine  will  get  a  sprain  if  I  leave  it  as 
it  is.  I  thought  —  if  they'll  excuse  the  garden- 
gown  —  you  would  like  to  bring  them  out,  and  get 
their  criticism  upon  the  picture." 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  119 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ARMGAKT  :  "  I  accept  the  peril ; 
J  choose  to  walk  high  with  sublimer  dread 
Kather  than  crawl  in  safety." 

GRAF  :  "  Armgart,  I  would  with  all  my  soul  I  knew 
The  man  so  rare,  that  he  could  make  your  life 
As  woman  sweet  to  you,  as  artist  safe."  —  GEORGE  ELIOT. 

HE  sought  her  the  next  day  without  preface  or 
apology,  and  like  a  man  demanded  his  hearing 
out.  There  was  a  perfectly  new  element  in  his  man- 
ner to  her,  that  had  almost  the  dignity  of  a  claim  or 
right ;  but  to  resent  this  seemed  like  resenting  the 
pacred  incoherencies  of  grief.  Avis  received  him 
gently. 

He  found  her  wandering  in  the  fields  about  the 
shore.  She  could  not  work.  She,  too,  had  not  slept, 
and  looked  well-nigh  as  worn  as  he.  They  did  not 
sit  down,  but  walked  restlessly  to  and  fro  through  the 
long,  impeding  grass. 

He  could  not  catch  her  eye  ;  but  the  expression  of 
'her  mouth  when  he  began  to  speak  disheartened 
him.  He  had  never  seen  her  put  her  lips  together 
so.  Avis  felt  that  a  battle  was  impending.  Even 
her  gentleness  had  a  kind  of  strategical  character. 
Her  foot  fell  upon  the  bruised  clover  with  a  martial 
rhythm.  The  whole  force  of  her,  soul  and  body 
seemed  to  garrison  itself. 


120  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

He  began  by  telling  her  in  a  tone  of  proud  humi 
lity  that  he  had  been  too  hasty  yesterday;  thai 
though  it  was  not  possible  that  he  could  be  mis- 
taken in  his  own  feeling,  as  she  would  know,  if 
she  knew  him  better,  yet  that  it  was  never  easy  for 
a  man's  imagination  to  employ  itself  upon  the  nature 
of  a  woman. 

"  And  3Tou,"  he  said,  with  a  lover's  ingenious  grav- 
ity, "are  like  no  other  woman, — no  other  that  I 
ever  saw.  I  do  not  believe  the  world  contains 
another.  You  perplex  me  like  the  Sphinx  ;  you  awe 
me  like  the  Venus  ;  you  allure  me  like  the  Lorelei ! 
I  have  dreamed  of  such  women.  I  never  saw  one. 
I  love  you! " 

He  turned  to  her  with  a  kind  of  solemn  authority, 
as  if  in  those  three  words  all  the  swift,  sweet  argu- 
ments of  his  heart  had  so  clearly  culminated,  that  it 
would  be  as  impossible  for  her  to  combat  them  as  it 
was  to  advance  any  thing  more  compelling  or  con- 
vincing ;  as  if  he  had  said,  "The  sky  is  blue  fire,"  or 
"The  daisy  turns  to  it,"  or  "The  tide  leans  to  the 
shore." 

He  looked  at  her  a  little  blindly,  with  half-fallen 
lids  :  there  was  a  hazy  radiance  in  his  eyes,  from  the 
full  force  of  which  it  was  as  if  he  shielded  her. 
Glancing  up  with  some  unspoken  protest  on  her 
lips,  she  seemed  to  feel  this ;  she  put  her  hand 
across  her  own  eyes  as  if  she  had  been  dazzled. 

"  When  a  man  loves  a  woman  as  I  love  you,"  he 
said  quietly,  ' '  he  expects  to  be  loved ;  he  has  a 
right  to  be ;  he  must  be." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  121 

"  You  do  not  know  what  you  sajT !  "  she  cried : 
"you  don't  know  what  you  ask.  I  am  not  a 
woman  to  make  you  —  to  make  any  man  happy. 
Even  if  I"  — 

"Ah,  what?  Even  if  you  what?  Rest  here  a 
minute  in  the  shade,  and  tell  me.  You  shut  your 
heart  away  from  me.  Let  me  stay  here  till  I  find 
it." 

"Then  you  will  stay  forever!"  flashed  the  wo- 
man, off  her  guard.  He  threw  himself  at  her  feet, 
in  the  shadow  of  the  stone  wall,  and,  across  a  little 
cordon  of  tall  daisies  that  leaped  uncrushed  between 
them,  looked  over  at  her. 

"Even  if  you"  — 

"That  does  not  matter  now.  It  was  nothing. 
Let  that  drop." 

"  Even  if  you  —  what  ?  Pray  finish  your  sentence. 
You  are  incapable  of  small  coquetries.  If  you  do 
not  finish  your  sentence,  it  must  be  that  you  really 
prefer  me  to  finish  it  for  you." 

"No,  no!  I  would  rather  finish  it  for  myself. 
I  meant  to  sa}^  that  even  if  I  loved  you." 

"And  what  then?  Suppose — just  suppose  it 
that  }TOU  loved  me.  Suppose  that  all  this  spring, 
the  feeling  —  3*011  have  called  it  artistic  fervor  ;  the 
sympathy  —  you  have  thought  it  friendliness;  the 
sweetness,  —  I  believe  you  thought  that  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  your  father;  all  the  glory  that 
has  come  into  life ;  all  this  delicate  intoxication 
that  has  been  between  us  two,  man  and  woman, 


122  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

created  by  heaven,  to  love,  to  yield,  like  other 
men  and  women ' '  — 

"I  will  never  yield,  like  other  women!  "  cried 
Avis,  quivering  across  the  daisies. 

u  But  suppose,"  he  continued,  his  tone  gaining 
in  quiet  insistence  as  hers  lost  strength  in  emotion, 
— "  suppose  that  all  this  had  meant  that  you  loved 
me?" 

"  Then  I  should  be  very  sorry,"  she  said  tremu- 
lously. 

"Why  sorry?" 

"  You  compel  me  to  repeat  an  unpleasant  thing," 
she  replied  more  faintly  yet.  "I  said,  even  sup- 
posing it  were  as  you  wish,  I  could  never  make  you 
happy. " 

"I  have  the  right  to  judge  of  that, — rather  a 
comfortless  right ;  but  I  shah1  not  overlook  it,  nor 
any  other  right  you  give  me." 

"I  have  given  you  none,  none!"  She  rose  in 
much  agitation,  and,  sweeping  down  the  daisies, 
turned  from  him.  It  were  hard  to  say  whether  it 
were  his  eyes  or  his  voice  that  restrained  her, — 
surely  his  touch  had  not  fallen  upon  so  much  as  the 
hem  of  her  garment, — but  she  stood  swaying  and 
uncertain,  and  then  slowly,  as  if  tender,  compelling 
hands  had  drawn  her,  sank  down  against  the  wall 
again. 

Perhaps  there  was  a  momentary  consciousness  of 
weakness  in  this  little  act,  which  stung  her  ;  for  her 
whole  mood  seemed  suddenly  to  gather  and  defend 
itself. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  123 

"  Mr.  Ostrander,"  she  said  with  a  gentle  distinct- 
ness, "  we  are  making  a  long  and  painful  scene  out 
of  a  matter  which  a  dozen  plain  words  will  settle." 

"  Then,"  said  he,  "  let  us  speak  the  plain  words." 

She  sat  for  a  moment  with  her  face  turned  towards 
him,  in  the  attitude  of  one  who  waits  for  expected 
speech.  But  the  young  man,  with  his  elbow  in  the 
daisies,  and  his  head  upon  his  hand,  lay  watching  her 
in  a  kind  of  trance.  His  eyes  had  gone  quite  dull 
and  blind,  as  if  the  force  of  his  repressed  feeling  had 
been  an  objective  presence,  like  a  mid-day  sun. 
Turning,  she  saw  this  memorable  look,  for  the  first, 
but  not  the  last  time  in  her  life.  Her  resolution 
seemed  to  gather  courage  from  it ;  and  she  said  with 
increasing  quietness, — 

"The  plain  word  is,  that  I  do  not,  and  I  must 
not,  think  of  love,  because  the  plain  truth  is,  that 
I  cannot  accept  the  consequences  of  love  as  other 
women  do." 

1  'Oh,  I  see!  I  was  a  brute  to  make  you  say 
that,"  cried  Ostrander  impatiently.  That  blind 
look  broke  suddenly,  and  scattered  into  an  uncer- 
tain, darting  gleam,  like  a  ball  of  quicksilver 
crushed.  "You  mean  that  you  do  not  wish  to 
marry?" 

"  Certainly  I  mean  that.  But  it  was  a  little  hard 
to  be  made  to  say  it.  Now  it  is  said,  I  don't  care. 
There  is  an  end  to  it." 

"It  is  not  love,  then,  that  you  feel  a  disrespect 
for,  but  marriage?  You  prefer  to  marry  Art,  I 


124  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

suppose,"  he  said  perplexedly.  "  You  are  happier 
so?" 

"I  feel  no  disrespect  for  either,  that  I  am  con- 
scious of;  but  surely  I  am  happier  as  I  am."  That 
sensitive  vein  on  her  temple  throbbed  painfully. 
What  did  this  man  take  her  for?  Painted  canvas, 
perhaps  ;  or  a  marble  antique ;  a  torso,  possibly ; 
something  mechanically  constructed  on  the  principles 
of  the  highest  art,  content  to  gather  the  dust  of  her 
studio  without  a  heart-throb ;  a  fleshless,  bloodless 
thing.  A  great  impulse  surged  over  her  to  rise,  and 
cry  out  to  him,  — 

"I  am  human,  I  am  woman!  I  have  had  my 
dreams  of  love  like  other  women ! ' '  But  that  was 
not  a  matter  to  chatter  about.  When  she  found  the 
man  who  could  both  understand  and  reverence  these 
dreams  —  but  in  her  wildest  vision  she  had  only 
seen  his  face  as  we  see  the  loved  faces  of  the  dead, 
sacred,  safe,  and  snatched  from  her.  God  gave  her 
the  power  to  make  a  picture  before  he  gave  her  the 
power  to  love  a  man. 

And  this  man,  this,  who  had  confused  and  agi- 
tated, nay,  half  blinded  her,  with  whom  her  nature 
found  escape  or  surrender  equally  impossible,  — what 
should  she  do  with  him  ?  She  thought  of  him  with 
a  kind  of  terror  which  only  a  woman  can  understand, 
because  he  had  come  so  near,  but  failed  to  come 
nearer J  to  her  ;  because  he  had  startled  her  into  put- 
ting her  whole  soul  in  arms  which  he  had  failed  to 
conquer.  She  almost  wished  at  that  moment  that 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  125 

she  could  have  loved  like  other  women,  and*  that  she 
could  have  loved  him.  That  experience,  at  least, 
would  have  had  the  beauty  of  holiness :  this  bore 
the  bruise  of  sacrilege. 

His  thoughts,  like  a  witch-hazel,  seemed  to  follow 
and  command  the  spring  of  hers ;  for  just  then  he 
said  abruptly,  — 

"  So,  then,  if  you  loved  me,  you  are  sure  you 
would  not  marry  me  ?  We  might  be  so  happy !  Did 
you  never  think  of  that?" 

He  drew  a  little  nearer  to  her.  Both  the  words 
and  the  motion  had  something  of  the  nature  of 
unconsciousness.  The  tall  white  daisies  swayed 
delicately  in  the  golden  air  between  them. 

4  c  A  woman  never  thinks  —  I  never  thought  —  of 
such  a  thing  in  such  a  way,"  said  Avis,  with  recoil- 
ing eyes. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.  A  man  is  so  different !  and 
you  are  so  different  from  most  women !  But,  if  you 
loved  me,  you  would  marry  me  all  the  same.  You 
should  be  happy.  You  should  paint.  I  should  be 
proud  to  have  you  paint.  I  used  to  think  I  should 
be  wretched  with  a  gifted  wife  (all  young  men  do)  ; 
but  you  have  taught  me  better.  It  would  be  the 
purpose  —  do  not  think  it  the  ravings  of  a  lover  if 
I  say  it  would  be  the  passion  —  of  my  life  to  help 
you  realize  your  dreams  of  success." 

Avis  smiled  sadly ;  but  she  said,  with  the  evidence 
and  the  consciousness  of  feeling  more  deeply  shaken 
than  any  he  had  yet  seen,  — 


126  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  How  can  you  know  what  my  dreams  are?  Did 
I  ever  tell  them  to  you  ?  You  are  using  a  language 
that  you  do  not  understand.  My  ideals  of  art  are 
those  with  which  marriage  is  perfectly  incompatible. 
Success  —  for  a  woman  —  means  absolute  surrender, 
in  whatever  direction.  Whether  she  paints  a  picture, 
or  loves  a  man,  there  is  no  division  of  labor  possible 
in  her  economy.  To  the  attainment  of  any  end 
worth  living  for,  a  symmetrical  sacrifice  of  her 
nature  is  compulsory  upon  her.  I  do  not  say  that 
this  was  meant  to  be  so.  I  do  not  think  we  know 
what  was  meant  for  women.  It  is  enough  that  it 
is  so.  God  may  have  been  in  a  just  mood,  but  he 
was  not  in  a  merciful  one,  when,  knowing  that  they 
were  to  be  in  the  same  world  with  men,  he  made 
women," 

"But  suppose,"  interrupted  Ostrander,  thrilling 
with  hope  in  proportion  as  she  fired  with  rebellion, 
—  "  suppose  two  people  had  been  born  to  show  that 
this  need  not  be  so.  That  would  be  very  much  like 
God,  on  the  whole,  to  let  the  whole  world  suspect, 
if  it  dared  not  accuse,  him  of  injustice  in  a  given 
course,  and  then  spring  the  abounding  mercy  of  it 
on  us  at  the  brink  of  faith's  surrender.  Suppose  a 
man  and  woman  had  been  made  and  led  and  drawn 
to  one  another,  just  to  show  that  the  tolerance  of 
individuality,  even  the  enthusiasm  of  superiority, 
could  be  a  perfectly  mutual  thing." 

"  There  may  be  such  women  in  the  world,"  said 
Avis  :  "  I  have  never  seen  such  a  man.  Only  lovers 
think  it  to  be  possible." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  127 

Nothing  could  have  disheartened  him  like  the 
delicate  tooth  of  perfectly  unconscious  satire  biting 
through  those  last  few  words ;  not  even  her  lapse 
into  her  wonted  self-command,  nor  the  sealed  eyes 
which  she  was  turning  away  from  him  to  the  restless 
sea.  He  understood,  as  perfectly  as  if  she  had  said 
so,  that  the  tide  of  an  emotion  stronger  than  he  had 
ever  witnessed  in  her  had  turned,  and  was  setting 
out  from  him.  He  was  only  half  comforted  when  she 
added,  in  the  calmer  tone  of  one  who  brings  a  dis- 
cussion to  an  inexorable  close,  — 

' 4 1  never  said  to  any  one  what  I  have  said  to  you 
to-day,  if  that  is  any  pleasure  to  you :  it  will  be  none 
to  me." 

"  I  suppose,"  he  said,  after  an  oppressive  silence, 
"  if  I  had  been  more  of  a  man,  a  man  of  genius  for 
instance,  I  might  have  commanded  your  love  by  this 
tune.  "Whatever  my  abilities  are,  they  are  untried. 
Your  future  is  so  far  established.  It  is  all  so  differ- 
ent from  the  way  a  man  and  woman  usualty  meet ! 
A  man  of  my  sort  must  seem  to  you  so  young.  To 
your  inspirational  atmosphere  what  a  plodding  dog  a 
college  tutor  is  !  I  suppose  a  gifted  woman  dreams 
of  a  great  man.  I  shall  never  be  a  great  man  ;  but 
—  with  you  —  I  might  do  some  worthy  work.  I  feel 
a  unity  in  all  aims,  all  hope,  since  I  have  known  you ; 
life  seems  symmetrical  and  coherent,  and  worth 
while.  It  does  not  always.  I  am  a  restless  fellow." 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  do  worthy  work,"  said  Avis 
with  ringing  earnestness,  —  "  sure,  sure  !  " 


128  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Are  you  so  sure?  Thank  you  for  that.  I  wish 
I  were." 

"And  you  mistake  me,"  she  continued  eagerly, 
"  in  what  you  said  just  now.  I  don't  think  I  could 
love  a  great  man,  if  I  tried." 

"  Why  not?  "  asked  Ostrander,  a  faint  smile  en- 
croaching upon  the  deepening  pain  of  his  face. 

"  I  never  asked  myself  why,  any  more  than  I  ask 
myself  why  I  thrill  to  paint  a  picture,  and  suffer  to 
sew  a  seam.  It  is  enough  to  feel  such  things,  if  you 
feel  them  as  hard  as  I  do.  But  I  suppose  it  is  the 
moral  nature  of  a  man  a  woman  needs  —  I  mean  I 
should  need  —  to  find  great.  That  is  noble,  I  think, 
—  to  be  a  man,  and  be  great  in  goodness  ;  to  have 
faith  and  tenderness  and  truth,  and  whiteness  of  soul. 
I  should  care  much  less  for  what  was  in  a  man's 
head  than  what  was  in  his  heart.  And  a  great  man 
is  absorbed :  he  is  not  so  apt  to  think  of  little  things  ; 
he  is  too  busy  to  be  tender,  I  should  say." 

"But  that  is  the  way,"  said  he,  "that  men  feel 
about  women,  not  women  about  men." 

"Is  it?  "  asked  Avis,  sighing  :  "  I  do  not  know. 
I  should  think  all  women  would  feel  so.  But  I  have 
told  you  more  than  enough,  Mr.  Ostrander,  of  what 
I  think  and  feel.  It  cannot  help  us  any.  And  no 
man's  love  can  be  meant  for  me." 

"  Now  that,"  he  said  musingly,  "  is  what  I  can- 
not quite  understand.  I  never  knew  a  woman  in  my 
life  who  could  love  a  man  so  much  —  if  she  would. 
Pray  forgive  me !  Ah,  you  do  not  —  you  dare  not  — 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  129 

deny  that.     You  would  perjure  your  own  nature  if 
you  tried." 

"God  forbid  that  I  perjure  my  own  nature!", 
answered  Avis,  beginning  to  grow  pale.  "  But,  as 
I  live,  I  should  perjure  it  if  I  said  to  you  to-day 
that  I  believed  love  and  marriage  were  meant  for 
me.  And  whatever  it  would  be  to  me  —  this  life 
that  other  women  seem  to  be  so  —  happy  in ;  this 
feeling  that  other  women  —  have  —  to  offer  to  the 
man  they ' '  — 

She  broke  off  abruptly :  her  voice  had  fallen  to  an 
awe-struck  whisper. 

Her  solemn  reticence  and  reluctance  before  this 
experience  which  he  had  been  used  to  see  women 
enter  upon  both  readily  and  irreverently,  affected 
Ostrander  as  the  flash  of  a  new  planet  affects  the 
astronomer  whose  telescope  misses  to-day  what  it 
has  discovered  yesterday.  He  brought  his  dry 
hands  together,  and  wrung  them,  —  a  silent,  elo- 
quent gesture. 

"  Marriage,"  said  Avis,  not  assertantly,  but  only 
sadly,  as  if  she  were  but  recognizing  some  dreary, 
universal  truth,  like  that  of  sin,  or  misery,  or  death, 
44  is  a  profession  to  a  woman.  And  I  have  my  work ; 
I  have  my  work!  " 

"  But  suppose,"  he  suggested,  "  that  your  future 
should  fail  to  fulfil  its  —  present  promise  —  Be 
patient  with  me !  You  cannot  think  I  am  capable 
of  underrating  that  promise.  As  I  see  it,  it  is  a 
splendid  one.  But  fate  is  so  false  to  genius !  — 


130  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

perhaps  most  of  all  to  women,  as  you  say.  A  thou- 
sand things  may  baffle  you.  You  dare  the  loss  of 
what  nineteen  centuries  of  womanhood  has  held  as 
the  life  of  its  life ;  you  dare  the.  loss  of  home  and 
love  for  —  God  forbid  that  I  say  an  unproved  but 
as  3'et  untried  power." 

44  At  least,"  she  said,  after  a  silence  in  which  she 
had  sat  not  unmoved,  —  uyes,  at  least  I  can  dare. 
There  is  that  in  me  which  will  not  permit  me  not  to 
dare.  God  gave  it  to  me." 

"Amen!"  said  the  }7oung  man  solemnly.  Just 
then  he  could  add  no  more.  He  had,  perhaps,  never 
thought  till  that  moment  that  God  really  did  give 
such  things  to  women.  How  right  she  was  about 
it !  How  true,  how  strong !  His  reverence  for  her 
grew  with  Ms  sense  of  loss.  His  ardor  deepened 
under  her  denial.  He  had  always  thought  he  should 
learn  to  hate  a  woman  who  had  been  too  easily  won. 
It  seemed  to  him  at  that  moment  that  he  would 
rather  be  scorned  by  her  than  loved  by  any  other 
creature  in  the  world. 

"  May  I  not  come  another  day?  "  he  pleaded ;  for 
she  had  risen  as  she  spoke,  and,  carefully  stepping 
around  the  daisy  cordon,  turned  her  face  towards 
her  father's  house. 

"What  could  be  gained?"  said  Avis  sadly. 
"  We  can  neither  of  us  spare  the  strength  needed 
for  our  life's  work  — you  or  I  —  on  scenes  like  this. 
They  take  strength.  How  tired  }'ou  look !  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  a  sudden  womau/y 
quiver  on  her  face,  and  held  out  her  hand. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  131 

"  You  won't  mind  it,  if  I  say  that  I  shall — miss 
you  ?  Or  that  I  shall  always  like  to  know  }TOU  are 
my  friend?  "  she  added  timidly.  "  And  by  and  by, 
when  all  is  different  .  .  .  and  we  can  talk  of  other 
things  .  .  .  you  will  come  back  to  me?  " 

"  If  ever  I  come  back  to  you,  it  will  be  to  stay," 
said  Ostrander  under  his  breath.  "You  will  not 
get  rid  of  me  so  easily,  if  you  beckon  me  back." 
But  he  turned  haggardly  away;  and,  leaping  the 
wall  with  a  mighty  bound,  strode  off  alone  upon  the 
beach. 

Avis  stood  as  he  had  left  her  till  he  was  out  of 
sight;  then  slowly,  as  if  each  nerve  and  muscle  in 
her  body  yielded  separately,  sank  down  among  the 
daisies,  throwing  her  arms  above  her  head,  among 
their  roots.  She  was  worn  with  the  strain  of  the 
last  few  days.  She  thrust  her  cheek  down  into  the 
cool,  clean  earth,  and  let  the  grass  close  over  her 
young  head  with  a  dull  wish  that  it  were  closing  for 
the  last  time. 

As  she  lay  there,  prone  as  a  fallen  Caryatide, 
steps  crushed  the  clovers ;  Ostrander  had  returned, 
and  stood  again  beside  her. 

"Pardon  me,"  he  said  deprecatingly.  "I  have 
no  right,  but  the  right  of  my  misery,  to  intrude  in 
this  way.  I  thought  you  would  have  heard  me. 
Do  not  stir.  I  have  only  come  back  to  ask  you  a 
single  question." 

He  parted  the  long  grass  that  had  closed  above 
her,  and  looked  down.  She  had  sprung,  half  lean- 


132  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

ing  on  her  elbow,  and  lifted  her  face,  which  gathered 
a  chill  from  the  dull  green  shadow  in  which  she  was. 

"  In  your  soul's  name  and  mine,"  he  said,  "  will 
you  answer  what  I  shall  ask?  " 

"  I  will  try,"  she  said  solemnly. 

"  Tell  me,  then,"  he  proceeded  with  a  dizzy  feel- 
ing, wondering  whether  it  were  madness  or  inspira- 
tion that  possessed  him,  and  why  a  man  must  find 
in  either  an  iron  necessity  like  this  that  flogged  him 
into  speech,  "  tell  me,  —  it  is  all  you  can  do  for  me 
now,  and  I  dare  believe  you  would  relieve  the  pain 
you  must  inflict  so  far  as  you  can,  —  tell  me  if  I  am 
the  man  you  would  have,  might  have,  loved?  " 

All  her  face  and  figure,  which  had  been  suffused 
while  he  spoke,  with  a  beautiful  compassion,  grew 
tense.  She  flung  out  one  bent  elbow  as  if  she  had 
been  warding  off  a  blow.  But  she  said  still  sol- 
emnly, — 

u  For  your  soul's  sake  and  mine,  you  are  the  man 
I  will  not  love." 

It  was  not  long,  possibly  it  might  have  been  a 
week  or  ten  days,  after  the  completion  of  the  por- 
trait, when  one  evening,  as  Avis  came  in  rather 
wearily  from  the  studio,  she  found  aunt  Chloe  beck- 
oning mysteriously  to  her  from  the  piazza-steps. 
Aunt  Chloe  had  on  the  purple-and-wood-  colored 
garden-gown  that  she  had  bought  at  a  Harniouth 
bankrupt  sale,  since  three  cents  a  yard  was  a  saving 
worthy  the  attention  of  any  woman  who  handled 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  133 

money  often  enough  to  know  the  value  of  it ;  and 
the  difference  would  exactly  get  one  and  a  half  of 
those  religious  mottoes  so  pretty  in  the  So/dier's 
Hospital.  Aunt  Chloe  beckoning  on  the  piazza,  be- 
hind the  woodbine,  bloomed  like  a  large  and  rather 
stumpy  pansy.  Avis  remembered  the  pattern  of 
that  calico,  and  remembered  the  outline  that  the 
woodbine  mercifully  dropped  upon  it,  for  years  after 
it  had  gone  to  adorn  some  Georgia  freedwoman  of 
an  undoubtedly  deserving,  but,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
not  an  aesthetic  cast  of  mind. 

"  I  wanted  to  see  you,  my  dear,"  said  aunt  Chloe, 
"  about  the  lemon  cream.  Can  you  step  into  the 
pantry  a  minute?  There.  Just  taste  it,  willyqu? 
Too  much  sugar  ?  I  thought  so.  For  a  woman  who 
can  not  cook,  you  are  the  most  faultless  taster  I  ever 
knew.  Thank  you.  I  wonder  if  you'll  shut  the 
door  —  it  blows  the  cream.  That  will  do.  If  you've 
got  the  paint  off  3Tour  hands,  suppose  you  skim  a 
little  for  your  father's  berries.  Your  father  is  quite 
put  about,  to-night,"  added  aunt  Chloe,  who  seldom 
dropped  into  the  expressive  old  Vermont  phrase  un- 
less the  Harmouth  anxieties  were  over-keen. 

So  that  was  it.  Of  course  it  had  not  been  the 
lemon  cream.  Since  aunt  Chloe  had  sadly,  but,  as 
she  hoped,  resignedly  and  finally  admitted  the  glaring 
culinary  deficiencies  of  Avis' s  nature,  these  pantry 
matinees  had  been  rare. 

Avis  asked,  rather  listlessly,  what  was  the  matter 
with  father  this  time  ?  Was  it  the  sophomore  haz- 


134  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

ing,  or  the  senior  rush?  the  dangerously  lax  posi- 
tion taken  by  the  Theological  Chair?  or  had  some- 
body taken  the  liberty  to  differ  from  him  about 
the  non-ego  ?  Poor  father  !  His  nervous  irritability 
grew  upon  him  a  little. 

"  Yes,"  said  aunt  Chloe,  "  I  think  it  does.  We 
must  watch  him  more  carefully.  We  must  see  that 
he  is  kept  amused  and  exercised." 

This  was  said  in  the  tone  which  aunt  Chloe  always 
adopted  in  discussing  this  time-honored  subject,  — 
the  tone  usual  with  the  women  of  a  literary  man's 
family  ;  one  of  calm  and  gentle  superiority  to  a  race 
of  beings,  and  to  a  class  of  weaknesses,  which  must 
be.  tolerated,  but  might  not  be  cured  or  improved. 
Aunt  Chloe  said  he  must  be  kept  amused  and  ex- 
ercised, exactly  as  if  she  had  been  speaking  of  a  fine 
terrier  or  blooded  racer,  for  whose  physical  nurture 
she  was  professionally  though  affectionately  respon- 
sible. 

"  I  wonder,"  went  on  aunt  Chloe,  with  placid  ir- 
relevance, "  why  we  none  of  us  gave  Mr.  Ostrander 
his  title?" 

4 'His  title?"  Avis  held  the  skimmer  suspended 
at  a  rash  angle  over  a  plate  of  bread-cake. 

"  Yes,  his  medical  title.  You  know  he  graduated 
somewhere  in  medicine  ;  but  I  believe  he  found  it  dis- 
tasteful or  injurious  ;  I  think  it  was  injurious  to  his 
health.  And  I  should  no  more  have  thought  of  him 
as  a  doctor  than  I  should  think  of  him  as  a  —  por- 
poise," said  aunt  Chloe,  finding  her  imagination  sud- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  135 

denly  bankrupt  of  scientific  similes.  u  But,  now  lie 
must  needs  go  into  the  army,  it  comes  into  play.  It 
shows  the  great  usefulness  of  a  liberal  education,  I 
suppose  ;  but  your  father  is  just  as  much  worked  up 
about  it.  You  are  dribbling  the  tream  on  the  bread- 
cake.  Your  father  says  the  country  needs  superior 
young  men  to  preserve  the  tone  of  her  colleges  as 
much  as  she  does  at  the  front  just  now.  And  he 
says  there's  a  plethora  of  surgeons.  Mr.  Ostrander 
was  such  a  pet  with  him !  What  have  you  done  with 
the  skimmer  ?  And  the  worst  of  it  is  "  — 

"  Well,"  said  Avis,  "  what  is  the  worst  of  it?  " 
For  aunt  Chloe  had  suddenly  set  her  sentence  away 
to  cool  in  the  ice-chest,  into  which  she  had  dived 
bodily  on  one  of  those  mysterious  domestic  inspira- 
tions which  Avis  had  long  since  ceased  attempting  to 
fathom.  Aunt  Chloe's  face  and  shoulders  had  quite 
disappeared ;  but  the  back  of  the  pansy-gown  pre- 
sented a  broad  and  impressive  front,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  expression.  A  vis's  eyes  traced  the  pat- 
tern up  and  down.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  but 
a  brown  palm-leaf  and  a  purple  stripe  in  all  the  world. 

"You  were  saying,  aunt  Chloe,  the  worst  of  it 
was  "  — 

"  The  berries  are  withered,"  said  aunt  Chloe, 
slowly  exhuming  herself  from  the  refrigerator. 
"  Oh,  yes  !  the  worst  of  it  is  about  the  professorship. 
Mr.  Ostrander  received  the  call  last  night,  and  this 
morning  he  enlisted  for  three  months.  That  is  what 
has  put  your  father  out  so.  I  told  him,  if  the  young 


136  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

man  was  worth  any  thing,  he  was  worth  their  waiting 
for.  But  he  said  three  months  was  long  enough  to 
kill  a  man,  and  that  he  liked  to  see  a  }Toung  fellow 
have  a  mind,  and  stick  to  it.  Now,  if  you'll  call 
Julia,  we  will  have' these  picked  over." 

The  next  day  Coy  and  Barbara  came  over  to  beg 
some  of  aunt  Chloe's  flowers  to  send  ou,t  to  camp, 
whither,  they  said,  Mr.  Ostrander  was  going  in  an 
hour.  The  next  night  the  professor  laid  a  letter 
upon  A  vis's  plate  at  tea,  from  which,  when  she  opened 
it,  there  dropped  out  a  check,  drawn  in  Philip  Os- 
trander's  name,  upon  the  Harmouth  Bank.  It  was 
enclosed  in  a  letter-sheet,  on  which  was  written  only, 
in  the  pencilled  camp-scrawl  which  so  quickly  takes 
on  something  of  the  sacredness  of  death,  — 

u  I  have  made  it  paj^able  to  your  father's  order, 
thinking  it  may  be  more  convenient  or  agreeable  for 
you  to  cash."  Nothing  more.  It  was  the  price  of 
the  portrait. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  137 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"Touch  is  the  sight  of  the  body Sight  is  the  touch  of  the 

soul."  —  CHARLES  BLANC. 

Bead  us  at  length, 

Head  this  transcendent  thing 

Neither  angel  nor  human ; 
Alert  with  a  lion's  strength, 
Plumed  with  an  eagle's  wing,  — 

But  still  with  the  face  of  a  woman. 

JULY  kindled  slowly  but  fiercely,  like  the  heart 
of  a  furnace.  The  delicate  edges  of  each  nerv- 
ous leaf  on  the  famous  Harmouth  elms  curled  and 
blackened.  The  much-gravelled  sidewalks  burned 
the  dignified  feet  of  the  professors  on  their  patient 
way  to  lecture.  The  much-expanded  cotton  um- 
brella gloomed  gracefully  above  their  heads.  The 
college-boys  fitted  for  biennial  under  the  tutelage 
of  the  ice-cream  vender,  and  became  the  abject 
preys  of  the  soda-fountain  and  the  lemonade-boy. 
The  yachting-parties  drew  in  their  idle  sails.  Aunt 
Chloe's  anxious  watering-pot  made  no  tours  among 
the  stifling  flowers  till  the  scorching  sun  had  stooped. 
The  blinds  of  the  garden  studio  were  closely  drawn. 
At  the  front,  hale  soldiers  dropped  from  the  ranks 
with  sunstroke,  and  the  wounded  died  of  thirst  upon 
the  field .  It  was  the  summer  of  battles ,  —  Fair  Oaks , 
The  Seven  Days,  Cedar  Mountain,  Bull  Run,  Har- 
per's Ferry,  Antietam. 


138  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Avis,  that  summer,  seemed  to  herself  to  be  turn- 
ing her  life  through  her  fingers,  as  we  turn  the  pages 
of  a  book  whose  purpose  we  foreknew,  but  whose 
construction  is  blind :  its  action  moved  slowly  and 
almost  painfulty,  like  the  motion  of  superfluous  de- 
tails muffling  the  stir  of  events.  She  read  on  and 
on  and  on,  with  fixed  eyes,  but  with  a  sense  of  ex- 
pectance difficult  to  explain  or  justify :  by  and  by 
the  text  would  be  clear ;  by  and  by  she  should  live 
in  terse  sentences. 

She  had  set  herself,  with  more  patience  than 
power,  resolutely  to  work ;  but  she  found  the  lips 
of  her  visions  muttering  in  a  foreign  tongue.  She 
sat  entire  days  before  an  untouched  canvas.  She 
stared  entire  nights  upon  untapestried  darkness. 
Her  father  found  her  one  day,  burning  the  sketches 
in  her  studio  in  a  fever  of  self-despair.  He  said 
nothing,  except  that  he  thought  the  sketches  were 
promised  to  him,  gave  her  a  keen  look,  patted  her 
cheek  gently,  and  went  away.  He  could  not  help 
her.  He  supposed  that  was  the  way  the  "fine 
frenzy"  worked  upon  the  feminine  nature. 

Perhaps  her  mother  would  have  known  what  to  say 
to  the  child.  If  she  must  live  this  life,  she  needed 
her  mother.  The  professor  had  long  since  tabulated 
his  daughter  as  a  glittering  syllogism  whose  premises 
were  incorrect,  though  its  conclusion  was  perversely 
attractive,  and  so,  like  a  philosopher,  peacefully 
given  her  up.  It  must  be  admitted  that  A  vis's  pic- 
tures were  better  than  her  biscuit.  And  man  did 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  139 

not  live  on  bread  alone.  And  sometimes,  when  he 
came  out  from  the  studio,  a  dimness  like  faint  mist 
stirred  far  within  his  cavernous  eyes.  She  would 
have  been  proud  of  this  dark-eyed,  deft-handed,  un- 
domestic  girl.  She  had  never  wanted  a  boy. 

Beyond  two  or  three  really  fine  things  done  in 
Paris,  the  landscape  which  had  attracted  so  much 
notice  in  London,  a  sketch  or  so  in  the  spring  exhi- 
bition, and  Philip  Ostrander's  portrait,  Avis  had 
as  yet  done  little  towards  giving  form  to  her  ideals  ; 
and  more  than  one  year  of  Couture' s  golden  proba- 
tion was  gone. 

Her  return  to  America  had  been  in  itself  one  of 
those  stimulating  experiences  whose  immediate  effect 
is  a  sedative  one. 

The  elemental  loves  of  kin  and  country  had  been 
stirred  in  her  to  the  finest  fibre  of  their  wide-reaching 
roots.  She  had  come  home  to  find  that  the  after- 
noon sun  in  her  father's  study,  on  the  picture  of  Sir 
William,  thrilled  her  as  no  glory  or  story  of  Vati- 
can, Pitti,  or  Louvre,  had  ever  done.  It  meant 
more  to  her,  at  first,  just  to  go  out  into  the  garden 
and  bury  her  face  in  the  young  grass,  and  listen  to 
the  squirrels  scolding  in  the  pear-trees,  and  the 
trustful  call  of  the  cows  waiting  for  Jacobs  down  the 
field,  than  it  seemed  as  if  the  fair  young  picture 
before  her  could  ever  mean.  Especially  she  was 
moved  by  the  spring  scents  ;  the  breath  of  the  earth, 
where  the  overturned  loam  lay  moistly  melting  shades 
of  brown  together,  —  amber,  umber,  sienna,  mad- 


140  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

der,  bitumen,  and  Vandyck,  —  with  that  tenderness 
which  is  so  inexpressibly  heightened  by  the  gravity 
of  the  color  ;  the  aromatic  odor  of  the  early  bonfires 
with  whose  smoke  the  languid  air  was  blurred  and 
blue  ;  then  by  the  exhalation  of  small  buds,  the  ehn 
and  the  grape  that  borrowed  the  mantle  of  the  leaf, 
as  wild  things  do  that  of  the  forest,  to  escape  detec- 
tion. Every  sense  in  her  quivered  to  homely  and 
unobtrusive  influences. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  she  could  look  at  a 
certain  faded  cricket  in  the  parlor  that  her  mother 
worked,  without  the  strange,  hot  tears.  She  would 
not  have  exchanged  the  choirs  of  St.  Peter's  for  the 
sound  of  the  old  chapel  bell  calling  the  students  to 
evening  prayers. 

And  then  —  ah  well !  and  then  there  had  been  that 
slip  upon  the  light-house  reef ;  that  had  cost  its  own 
proportion  of  dumb  days.  And  after  that  she  had 
painted  the  portrait.  And  then  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to  forecast  the  precise  personal  effect  of 
this  war.  Life,  she  thought,  had  pressed  too  near 
her,  since  she  came  home,  for  her  to  tell  the  world 
what  it  meant ;  clung  too  close,  and  with  too  sweet 
insistence,  like  the  friend  who  stops  the  mouth  with 
kisses. 

All  those  studies  which  had  stood  with  their  faces 
to  the  wall  while  Ostrander  had  been  in  the  studio, 
she  would  have  liked  to  put  out  of  the  wide  world, 
if  her  father  had  not  cared.  She  wanted  a  clean, 
cold,  barren  start,  like  a  racer  in  a  moor.  There 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  141 

were  some  pleasant  little  things  among  them  too,  — 
a  Florentine  sunset,  five  poplars  on  the  crest  of  a 
hill  against  a  sky  of  dull  metallic  red  ;  a  Neapolitan 
girl  tossing  her  bambino  into  the  air;  a  study  of 
breakers  under  an  advancing  fog,  the  mist  stalk- 
ing in  about  a  headland,  licking  up  the  deep  under- 
tones of  a  great  green  wave  ;  figures,  —  a  man  and  a 
woman  peering  over  the  edge  of  a  precipice  under 
an  intense  tropical  moon  ;  a  woman's  head,  the  eyes 
quite  turned  away,  —  a  study  from  some  Parisian 
model,  —  unfinished. 

But  Avis  put  them  all  back  with  their  faces  to  the 
wall,  sat  an  hour  longer  before  her  blank  canvas, 
then  laid  down  the  charcoals,  and  went  wearily  out 
into  the  hot  air.  The  sultry  evening  had  settled 
upon  the  sultrier  day.  The  college-boys  over  on 
the  green  were  singing  army  songs. 

"The  studio  is  too  hot,"  said  aunt  Chloe  with 
conscientious  sympathy.  "  I  wonder  if  it  wouldn't 
help  you  out  to  go  down  cellar,  and  stir  the  ice- 
cream." 

"  I  shall  get  to  work  to-morrow,"  said  Avis,  who 
never  liked  her  studio  to  be  under  family  discussion. 
But  to-morrow  Coy  came  over  to  take  her  to  the 
chapel,  where  the  women  of  Harmouth  sat  with 
hushed  voices,  rolling  bandages  and  picking  lint. 
The  butchery  of  Bull  Run  had  fallen  upon  the  man- 
gled land. 

This  meant  that  it  was  August  in  the  garden 
studio.  Avis  had  meant  to  have  a  picture  —  had 


142  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

hoped  to  have  a  good  picture — well  under  way  by 
the  time  that  the  copper-colored  sunlight  struggled 
through  the  August  murk  upon  the  easel. 

She  went  up  to  her  bedroom  that  night  with  dog- 
ged eyes.  She  had  fallen  into  one  of  these  syn- 
copes of  the  imagination  in  which  men  have  periled 
their  souls  to  stimulate  a  paralyzed  inspiration.  By 
any  cost  —  "  by  virtue  or  by  vice,  by  friend  or  by 
fiend,  by  prayer  or  by  wine" — the  dumb  artist 
courts  the  miracle  of  speech. 

Angel  or  devil,  who  is  it  that  troubleth  the  torpid 
waters  ?  Equally  the  soul  makes  haste,  lest  another 
should  step  down  before  her. 

Avis  shut  and  locked  the  door  of  her  bare,  old- 
fashioned  room,  looking  about  it  with  a  kind  of  tri- 
umphant rebellion.  She  was  a  woman.  Those  four 
walls  shut  out  the  world  from  the  refined  license  of 
her  mood.  She  wanted  nothing  of  it, — the  great 
unholy  world,  in  which  seers  struggled  and  sinned 
for  their  visions.  Let  them  go  fighting  and  erring 
on.  God  spoke  in  another  way  to  women, — in  no 
earthquake,  in  no  fire  of  the  soul,  but  in  still  small 
voices.  What  would  her  escaping  nature  with  her  ? 
Perhaps  by  and  b3^,  when  all  the  house  was  still, 
she  would  go  bounding  down  through  the  long  grass, 
and  dash  herself  full-length  upon  the  shore,  and  let 
one  wave — just  one  —  break  its  white  heart  upon 
her.  Or  she  would  push  her  little  boat  off  from  the 
beach,  and  row  out  alone  a  mile  or  two  down  the 
Harbor,  till  she  was  exhausted  (and  so  calmed)  by 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  143 

the  wooing  of  the  faint  moonlit  shores.  The  only 
thing  she  could  think  of  that  she  wanted,  out  of  all 
the  intoxications  that  the  round  world  held  that  sum- 
mer night,  would  be  a  room  full  of  hyacinths,  —  rose- 
hyacinths,  —  and  some  one  to  play  Schumann  in  the 
sultry  garden.  Then,  by  morning,  she  might  paint 
her  picture. 

Was  that  what  the  work  of  women  lacked?  — 
high  stimulant,  rough  virtues,  strong  vices,  all  the 
great  peril  and  power  of  exuberant,  exposed  h'fe  ? 

Dreamily  across  the  current  of  her  thought,  float- 
ed the  pathetic  sound  of  the  bqys'  voices  in  the 
street,  still  and  forever  busy  with  those  army 
songs :  — 

"  In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies 
Christ  was  born  across  the  sea." 

She  turned  from  the  window  with  an  abrupt,  de- 
jected motion.  Who  could  make  a  picture  till  the 
war  was  over  ? 

"  Since  he  died  to  make  men  holy," 
sang  on  the  boys, 

"  Let  us  die  to  make  men  free." 

She  stood  for  some  moments  quite  still,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room,  her  arms  thrown  down,  and  her 
fingers  clasped  together  at  the  tips.  Suddenly  start- 
ing, with  a  firm  step,  and  half- amused,  half- curious 
lighting  of  the  face,  she  unlocked  a  little  French 
dressing-case  that  stood  upon  the  bureau,  and  took 


144  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

from  it  a  slender  bottle,  bearing  the  trade-mark  of  a 
house  in  the  south  of  France,  and  the  label,  "  Eau 
de  Fleurs  d' Granger." 

She  poured  the  liquid  out,  holding  it  to  the  light. 
Each  drop  was-an  amber  bead,  sluggish  and  sweet. 

Leave  men  their  carousal,  their  fellowship,  the 
heart's  blood  of  the  burning  grape.  In  the  veins 
of  the  buds  that  gills  wear  at  their  bridals  runs  a 
fire  of  flavor  deep  enough  for  us.  The  wine  of  a 
flower  has  carried  many  a  pretty  Parisian  to  an  in- 
trigue or  a  convent.  Could  it  carry  a  Yankee  girl 
to  glory? 

So,  half  laughing,  half  credulous,  wholly  excited, 
Avis  swallowed  a  cautious  dose  of  the  innocent- 
looking  liqueur,  darkened  her  room,  threw  wide  her 
blinds,  and  went  to  bed. 

In  the  course  of  perhaps  ten  minutes  she  experi- 
enced a  slight  swimming  of  the  head  :  she  bolstered 
herself  high  upon  the  square  pillows,  and  threw  her 
arms  down  by  her  side ;  they  fell  heavily,  and  she 
found  it  a  task  not  quite  worth  the  undertaking  to 
stir  them  again  from  their  places.  A  dull  but  not 
painful  pressure  set  slowly  in  the  brain,  and  a  slight 
but  not  disagreeable  ringing,  in  the  ears.  The  most 
distinct  thought  that  she  had  was  now  a  sense  of 
relief  that  she  could  not  hear  the  army  songs.  Sud- 
denly the  room  began  to  reel.  Then,  as  if  a  Titan 
had  taken  her  by  the  feet,  and  swung  her  through 
infinite  space,  she  felt  herself  spin  round  and  round. 
As  suddenly  all  motion  and  all  sound  ceased.  She 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  145 

sat  up  against  the  pillows.  The  world  was  still, 
cool,  calm.  If  she  had  been  foolish  to  try  the  ex- 
periment upon  so  warm  a  day,  she  thought  she  was 
lightly  punished.  Her  head  was  quite  clear  and 
strong.  She  got  up,  and  bathed  her  face  and  bare 
arms  and  neck.  All  her  motions  were  free  and  full ; 
only  a  faint  sickness  remained.  Nothing  had  hap- 
pened. She  drained  a  tumbler  of  ice-water,  and 
went  back  to  bed.  The  moon  had  now  set.  Nothing 
had  happened,  except  that  the  darkness  had  become 
alive. 

That  which  she  saw  appeared  at  the  remote  wall 
of  the  room,  —  a  panorama  extending  from  floor  to 
ceiling,  stirring  slowly,  like  Gobelin  tapestry  which 
unseen  hands  rolled  and  unrolled.  She  roused  her- 
self, sitting  with  her  hands"  clasped  about  her 
knees,  giving,  as  was  her  habit,  a  more  iron  atten- 
tion to  these  fictions  of  her  own  nature  than  to  any 
thing  which  those  of  others  had  made  fact  in  the 
world.  Neither  Raphael  nor  Titian  could  have 
taught  her  what  she  learned  in  one  such  self-articu~ 
late  hour  as  this. 

The  first  thing  which  she  saw  was  a  huge  earthen 
vase,  standing  by  itself  against  the  wall,  raised  a 
few  inches  from  the  floor,  thus,  and  thus  only,  indi- 
cating to  her  eyes  that  it  was  not  what  we  are  used 
to  call  a  reality.  It  was  of  an  antique  Egj'ptian 
mould,  with  which  she  must  have  been  unconsciously 
familiar ;  but  the  pattern  of  its  decoration  was  one 
perfectly  unknown  to  her.  Through  a  maze  of 


146  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

lotus-leaves  Isis  went  seeking  Osiris,  the  figures 
moving  faintly  before  her  eyes  till  they  had  adjusted 
themselves  with  what  seemed  a  voluntary  motion  to 
their  attitudes  upon  the  clay.  The  figures  were 
black,  expressed  by  gray  lights.  The  leaves  were 
of  an  opaque  green,  without  veining  or  shadow.  A 
raised  design  of  silver  and  steel  surrounded  the  neck, 
lips,  and  pedestal  of  the  jar.  If  it  had  been  light 
enough,  she  could  have  taken  her  pencil,  and  accu- 
rately copied  this  design,  which  was  very  intricate, 
and  which  pleased  her.  At  the  mouth  of  the  jar  a 
bronze  crocodile  lurked,  with  fore-feet  and  jaws  only 
raised  above  the  edge,  lolling  like  a  tongue. 

This  appearance,  which  lasted  but  a  few  moments, 
was  the  signal  for  a  kaleidoscope  of  beautiful  and 
soulless  form  to  stir  before  her,  slowly  and  subtly, 
like  the  outer  circle  of  a  whirlpool  into  which  she 
was  to  be  drawn.  Pottery,  porcelain,  furniture, 
drapery,  sculpture,  then  flowers,  fruits,  —  a  medley 
of  still-life,  —  swept  through  strange,  half-revealed, 
but  wholly  resplendent  interiors,  which  glided  on  in- 
differently, like  languages  that  said,  ' '  What  hast  thou 
to  do  with  us?  "  Now  and  then,  out  of  the  splendid 
maze,  a  distinct  effect  seemed  to  pause,  and  poise  it- 
self, and  woo  her  through  the  dark.  An  open  hand, 
raised,  and  turned  at  the  wrist  like  a  flower  on  its 
stem,  held  water-lilies  drooping  and  dripping.  A 
sunbeam,  upon  an  empty  chair  in  a  student's  alcove, 
focussed  upon  a  child's  shoe  and  a  woman's  ribbon. 
A  skull  ground  a  rose  between  its  teeth.  Bees, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  147 

upon  a  patch  of  burning  July  sky,  wooed  a  clover. 
In  a  pool  in  a  cliff,  a  star-fish  defined  the  colors  of  a 
tangle  of  weeds  and  shells.  In  a  thicket  of  wild- 
briar  a  single  rose-leaf  had  fallen  upon  a  gray  stone, 
across  which,  and  over  the  miniature  clearing  in  the 
mimic  forest,  the  tattered  and  fringed  light  lay. 

These  passed.  Avis  nodded  at  them  like  the 
children  at  the  visions  in  Hans  Andersen's  tales.  It 
was  all  a  land  of  bric-a-brac.  She  had  not  the  ce- 
ramic nature.  Let  them  go. 

They  were  succeeded  by  an  uplifting  and  sweep- 
ing on  of  perspective,  by  means  of  which  great  dis- 
tances seemed  to  become  measurable  in  the  little 
room.  Through  them  the  generous  moods  of  nature 
stirred,  and  earth  turned  herself  about  like  a  beau- 
tiful creature  half  awake.  At  first  it  was  the  cac- 
tus on  the  campagna  which  shot  up  against  the  dark, 
scarlet,  blazing,  having  a  pulsation  Mice  a  heart ;  it 
towered  heaven-high,  as  if  to  the  eyes  of  one  who 
sat  below  its  level ;  and  low  through,  and  far  beyond 
it,  the  sun  had  set,  shrinking  under  a  purple  cloud. 

Then  out  of  a  cool,  green  shadow  faint  outlines 
grew,  sharpened,  swept ;  and  a  world  of  ferns  arose. 
She  could  see  spiral  buds  uncoil  delicately,  like  the 
opening  life  of  a  silent  girl,  and  the  fine  fronds  sway 
and  aspire.  These,  too,  shot  high,  as  if  she  had  been 
prone  upon  the  ground  among  them ;  and  on  them 
the  light  lay  low.  From  the  gold  to  the  cold,  every 
chromatic  shade  due  to  them  was  there.  It  was  a 
melody  in  green. 


148  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

From  this  there  slowly  gathered  itself,  and  leaned 
towards  her,  one  Titantic  wave.  It  was  a  mid- 
ocean  wave.  It  reared  its  full-length  from  foot  to 
head.  The  colors  which  are  seen  only  at  the  ocean's 
core  settled  upon  it.  Not  a  "shoal  tint  was  in  it. 
It  was  both  the  science  and  the  art  of  a  wave.  It 
held  both  the  passion  and  the  intellect  of  the  sea. 
Above  its  crest  there  was  flung  one  human  hand, 
and  a  strip  of  pearl-white  sky. 

A  medley  of  outlines  followed,  —  caravans  crawl- 
ing through  a  desert ;  sunsets  behind  palmettos  ;  twi- 
lights in  forests  "  wherein  no  man  had  been  since 
the  making  of  the  world  ;  ' '  a  silver  fog  curling  from 
a  harbor  pierced  by  the  masts  of  anchored  ships ; 
wastes  of  snow,  blue- cold,  and  wan,  unbroken  by 
human  foot,  defined  by  the  loneliest  of  all  horizons, 
—  the  horizon  of  pines ;  then  one  mountain-peak, 
swathed  below  in  gloom,  swiftly  broken  at  the  sum- 
mit into  glory,  on  which  ' '  God  made  himself  an 
awful  rose  of  dawn." 

But  Avis  bowed  her  head  before  these  things,  and 
said,  "  Only  the  high  priest  enters  in." 

When  she  raised  her  eyes,  they  fell  upon  forms 
and  faces  grown  gaunt  with  toil,  —  an  old  man  sow- 
ing sparse  seed  in  a  chill  place  ;  the  lantern-flash  on 
a  miner's  stooping  face ;  the  brow  and  smile  of  a 
starving  child ;  sailors  abandoned  in  a  frozen  sea  ;  a 
group  of  factory  *women  huddling  in  the  wind ;  the 
poisoned  face  of  a  lead-worker  suddenly  uplifted 
like  a  curse ;  two  huge  hands  knotted  with  labor, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  149 

and  haggard  with  famine,  thrust  groping  out  upon 
the  dark. 

But  her  heart  cried  out,  "  I  am  yet  too  happy,  too 
young,  too  sheltered,  to  understand.  How  dare  I 
be  the  apostle  of  want  and  woe  ?  ' ' 

Even  with  the  word  the  vision  changed,  and 
slowly  as  she  leaned  to  look,  swiftly  as  her  heart 
beat  in  gazing,  there  grew  the  outline  of  a  Face.  It 
was  a  Face  dark,  dim,  brightening,  blinding,  beneath 
a  crown  of  thorns  ;  but  she  dashed  her  hand  across 
her  eyes,  and  said,  "  I  am  unworthy." 

The  night  might  have  been  now  well  worn  on, 
and  she  was  conscious  only  of  that  exhaustion  of 
the  nature  which  comes  from  a  highly-excited 
but  impotent  imagination.  The  repose  of  creation 
had  failed  to  relieve  the  fever  of  vision.  She 
was  thinking  so,  dejectedly  enough,  listlessly  look- 
ing in  one  corner  of  the  roomj  where  two  or 
three  slender,  bright  harebells  seemed  to  be  spring- 
ing from  a  cleft  in  a  rock,  when,  as  she  looked, 
a  girl  in  the  garb  of  a  peasant  stood  stoop- 
ing to  pluck  them.  Instantly  the  room  seemed  to 
become  full  of  women.  Cleopatra  was  there,  and 
Godiva,  Aphrodite  and  St.  Elizabeth,  Ariadne  and 
Esther,  Helen  and  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and  the  Magda- 
lene, Sappho,  and  Cornelia,  —  a  motley  company. 
These  moved  on  solemnly,  and  gave  way  to  a  sQcnt 
army  of  the  unknown.  They  swept  before  her  in 
file,  in  procession,  in  groups.  They  blushed  at 
altars ;  they  knelt  in  convents ;  they  leered  in  the 


150  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

streets  ;  they  sang  to  their  babes  ;  they  stooped  and 
stitched  in  black  attics  ;  they  trembled  beneath  sum- 
mer moons  ;  they  starved  in  cellars  ;  they  fell  by  the 
blow  of  a  man's  hand ;  they  sold  their  souls  for 
bread  ;  they  dashed  their  li ves  out  in  swift  streams  ; 
they  wrung  their  hands  in  prayer.  Each,  in  turn, 
these  figures  passed  on,  and  vanished  in  an  expanse 
of  imperfectly-defined  color  like  a  cloud,  which  for 
some  moments  she  found  without  form  and  void  to 
her. 

Slowly  but  surely  at  last,  and  with  piercing 
vividness,  this  unfolded,  and  she  saw  in  curt  out- 
lines, like  a  story  told  in  a  few  immortal  words,  this 
only :  — 

She  saw  a  low,  unclouded  Eastern  sky ;  fire  to  the 
horizon's  rim  ;  sand  and  sun  ;  the  infinite  desert ;  a 
caravan  departing,  faint  as  a  forgotten  hope  ;  mid- 
way, what  might  be  a  camel  perished  of  thirst.  In 
the  foreground  the  sphinx,  the  great  sphinx,  re- 
stored. The  mutilated  face  patiently  took  on  the 
forms  and  the  hues  of  life ;  the  wide  eyes  met  her 
own ;  the  dumb  lips  parted ;  the  solemn  brow  un- 
bent. The  riddle  of  ages  whispered  to  her.  The 
mystery  of  womanhood  stood  before  her,  and  said, 
"  Speak  for  me." 

Avis  lay  back  upon  her  pillow  with  a  sudden, 
long,  sobbing  sigh.  She  was  very  tired;  but  she 
had  seen  her  picture.  To-morrow  she  could  work. 

Up  to  this  point  there  had  been  nothing  unpre- 
cedented in  the  character  of  these  fantasies,  ex- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  151 

cepting  in  their  number  and  variety.  Her  creative 
moods  were  always  those  of  tense  vision,  amount- 
ing almost  to  optical  illusion,  failing  of  it  only  where 
the  element  of  deception  begins ;  but  now  when, 
exhausted  and  satisfied,  she  turned  upon  her  pillow, 
nestling  her  cheek  into  her  hand  like  a  child,  for 
sleep,  none  came.  Still  before  her  closed  eyes  the 
panorama  swept  imperiously ;  but  it  had  become  a 
panorama  of  agonies.  For  a  long  time  she  per- 
ceived only  the  suffering  of  animals,  an  appalling 
vision  of  the  especial  anguish  incident  to  dumb 
things.  She  saw  the  quiver  of  the  deer  under  the 
teeth  of  the  hound,  the  heart-throb  of  the  pursued 
hare,  the  pathetic  brow  of  a  d}dng  lioness,  the 
reproach  in  the  eye  of  a  shot  bird,  a  dog  under 
vivisection  licking  the  hand  that  tore  him.  Sharply, 
without  transition  or  preparation  of  the  fancy,  this 
changed  to  —  O  heavens  !  What  ? 

Avis  started,  with  a  cry  that  rang  through  and 
through  the  sleeping  house,  beating  her  hands 
against  her  eyes,  as  if  she  would  beat  out  the  very 
retina  on  which  the  shadow  of  such  sight  could  fall. 
For  now  she  was  pursued  by  a  vision  of  battles. 
Martial  music  filled  the  room ;  bright  blood-streaked 
standards  waved  and  sank  and  rose  again ;  human 
faces,  like  a  wind-struck  tide,  surged  to  and  fro ; 
men  reeled,  threw  up  their  arms,  and  fell ;  the  floor 
crawled  with  the  dead  and  dying;  wounded  faces 
huddled  in  corners,  came  and  vanished  on  the  ceil- 
ing, entered  and  re-entered  through  the  door,  gasped 


152  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

their  life  away  upon  the  bed.  The  glazing  eye,  the 
whitening  jaw,  the  clinching  fingers,  the  ineffectual, 
hoarse  effort  to  breathe  a  broken  name,  —  all  were 
there :  nothing  was  hidden,  hinted,  or  veiled ;  noth- 
ing was  spared  her. 

"  O  terror !  O  pity !  Have  mercy,  have  mercy, 
have  mercy!  " 

Aunt  Chloe  came  panting  in  (in  an  amazing  wrap- 
per that  outdid  the  pansy-gown) ,  and  shut  the  blinds 
before  she  struck  the  light.  No  good  housekeeper 
would  let  in  the  mosquitos,  whatever  the  emergency. 

i  c  Nightmare,  Avis,  or  colic  ?  I  thought  the  black- 
berries were  sour.  Never  mind,  we  will  have  a  light 
directly.  Why,  what  is  this  broken  glass  ?  Pieces 
of  a  bottle  on  the  window-sill !  Are  you  hurt  —  cut  ? 
I  was  sure  I  heard  your  voice.  But,  fortunately,  it 
has  not  waked  your  father.  Now,  my  dear  !  " 

u  Aunt  Chloe,"  said  Avis,  passing  her  hand  blind- 
ly across  her  eyes,  "  where  is  the  military  music?  " 

"Music?  There's  no  music,  but  tjiose  boys: 
they've  kept  it  up  till  now,  the  worse  for  them ! 
There'll  be  some  business  for  the  Faculty  to-morrow. 
I  always  thought  the  objection  to  a  university  town 
was  the  students.  So  that  was  what  waked  you, 
was  it?  I  don't  see  why  your  father  doesn't  put  a 
stop  to  these  midnight  carousals.  Army  songs, 
indeed  !  I  suppose  the  cats  in  the  back-yard  think 
they're  patriotic,  and  I  had  one  in  Vermont  that 
used  to  start  c  America ;  '  but  he  never  got  beyond 
the  second  bar.  There,  my  dear.  All  right  now? 
Why,  Avis!" 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  153 

For  Avis,  like  any  broken-hearted  woman  who 
was  not  going  to  paint  a  great  picture  to-morrow, 
had  fallen  back  upon  the  pillows,  and  crjing, 
"Auntie,  auntie,  O  auntie!  let  me  cry  a  minute," 
lay  shivering  and  sobbing  in  the  chill  dawn. 

Aunt  Chloe  and  the  professor  sat  in  the  study  in 
the  August  sunset.  Aunt  Chloe  had  meant  to  take 
the  first  opportunity  to  recommend  to  the  Faculty 
a  stricter  regime  of  night  police  for  those  boys  ;  but 
she  had  forgotten  all  about  the  boys.  Her  knitting- 
work  (blue  stockings  for  a  theological  student  des- 
tined for  the  Bulgarian  field)  lay  idly  on  her  broad, 
benevolent  lap.  Now  and  then  the  rare,  honest  tears 
of  her  Puritan  race  fell :  it  was  too  dark  for  Hegel  to 
see  them.  Under  the  Bulgarian  stocking  lay  the 
evening  paper,  folded  with  the  particular  crease 
indicative  in  aunt  Chloe 's  family  that  a  newspaper 
was  sacred  from  the  waste-basket,  and  elected  to  go 
upon  file  in  the  left  corner  of  the  third  shelf  from 
the  top  in  the  little  what-not  in  the  study  alcove. 

"What,"  asked  the  professor,  bringing  his  more 
than  commonly  nervous  pace  to  a  halt,  "what,  by 
the  way,  did  Avis  say  to  this  ?  " 

"Nothing." 

"Nothing  at  all?  I  should  have  thought  —  they 
were  thrown  so  much  together  —  that  the  young 
man's  fate  would  have  been  something  of  a  shock 
to  her.  Where  is  she  ?  ' ' 

"  She  has   been  in  the  studio  all  day,  except  a 


154  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

while  when  she  would  go  rowing.  I  found  her  with 
a  terrible  headache  this  morning,  what  with  the 
blackberries  and  the  boys.  I  don't  believe  Avis  has 
had  a  headache  before  since  she  had  the  measles. 
But  directly  after  breakfast  she  dragged  herself  out 
into  that  hot  summer-house,  and  there  she's  been. 
I  carried  her  the  paper.  I  thought  she'd  better  read 
it  herself.  She  thanked  me,  and  went  on  drawing. 
Oh,  yes !  she  asked  if  I  knew  where  he  would 
naturally  be  carried." 

u  To  his  home  in  New  Hampshire,  I  should  sup- 
pose," said  the  professor  sadly.  "I  believe  there 
is  an  old  father  —  or  mother.  I  should  have  thought 
Avis  would  have  been  more  touched  by  this." 

"No  doubt  she  feels  it,"  said  aunt  Chloe,  with  a 
certain  reserve  ;  ' '  but  you  know  when  she  is  in  that 
studio,  nothing  is  to  be  got  out  of  her." 

"True,"  said  the  professor,  "any  close  occupa- 
tion, indeed,  is  literally  a  pre-occupation :  the  ab- 
sorbed mind  is  inhospitable  to  intrusions.  Sir  Wil- 
liam says ' '  — 

"  Are  the  Faculty  going  to  do  any  thing?  "  inter- 
rupted aunt  Chloe,  who  seldom  found  Sir  William 
as  much  to  the  point  as  might  have  been  expected 
of  a  really  intelligent-looking  man  who  resembled 
her  brother. 

"What  can  be  done?  But  you  may  be  right. 
There  ought  at  least  to  be  some  formal  action,  some 
expression  of  sympathy.  Now  you  remind  me  of 
it,  I  will  just  step  over  to  the  president's,  and  see 
if  the  matter  has  been  broached." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  155 

u  Poor  fellow,  poor  fellow !  Tell  Avis  I  will  be 
b«ck  in  season  to  say  good-night,"  added  the  pro- 
fessor gently,  coming  back  after  he  had  closed  the 
door. 

Aunt  Chloe  sat  for  a  few  minutes  in  the  dark,  still 
idly,  thinking  how  long  it  was  since  she  had  seen 
Hegel  so  much  moved.  Then  she  rolled  up  the  Bul- 
garian stocking,  and  went  to  put  away  the  paper  in 
its  place,  stopping  only  by  the  window  to  be  sure 
that  the  marked  passage  lay  folded  on  the  top.  The 
faint  and  now  rapidly  dying  light  enabled  her  to 
read,  with  her  common  spectacles,  very  clearly,  — 

"  Ostrander,  Philip,  surgeon:  in  the  lungs." 

It  was  perhaps  a  week  after  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  and  Avis  had  found  herself  quite  undisturbed 
at  her  work,  left,  indeed,  in  a  rather  exceptional 
solitude,  at  which  she  wondered.  She  liked  to  see 
Coy  now  and  then ;  missed  her,  as  we  miss  the  sun- 
light whose  presence  we  are  yet  too  absorbed,  or  too 
miserable,  to  note.  Harmouth  without  Coy  would 
have  been  like  Harmouth  without  the  elms  or  the 
chapel  bell.  She  clung  to  Coy  with  the  almost 
pathetic  loyalty  of  a  woman  whose  twenty-six  years 
had  given  her  no  comradeship  of  a  fibre  against 
which  her  own  could  lean.  In  all  her  young  and 
later  friendships  Avis  had  been  used  to  bring,  not 
to  receive,  the  elements  of  support.  Deeper  than 
all  chance  in  this,  some  unconquerable  instinct  lay. 
In  the  relations  of  girlhood  she  had  been  marked  for 


156  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

a  certain  sweet  but  unapproachable  reserve.  She 
kissed  the  girls  politely,  since  it  was  expected  of 
her  ;  but,  in  their  indiscriminate  caressing,  she  found 
no  part,  no  lot :  her  nearest  intimate  could  not  recall 
an  hour  of  weakness,  of  pain,  or  of  excitement, 
which  had  surprised  Avis  into  it.  As  for  Coy,  she 
would  as  soon  have  thought  of  petting  the  Faculty 
as  of  offering  any  of  these  little  feminine  eccentrici- 
ties as  an  expression  of  her  feeling  for  Avis. 

Now,  Coy  had  never  voluntarily  staid  away  from 
her  a  fortnight  before  in  all  her  life.  When,  there- 
fore, she  came  into  the  studio  one  morning  after  this 
temporary  defalcation,  Avis  turned  the  sphinx  to 
the  wall,  and  received  her  with  unusual  warmth. 

4 'Avis,"  began  Coy  at  once,  "you  are  pale, — 
pale  as  the  higher  mathematics." 

"  And  you,"  said  Avis,  closely  scrutinizing  her, 
standing  at  arm's  length,  with  both  hands  on  her 
shoulders,  "  you  are  as  radiant  as  a  Neapolitan 
rose." 

"  So  she  said  in  a  novel,  I  think,"  said  Coy. 
"  Be  original,  Avis,  if  you  must  be  complimentary. 
You  don't  ask  me,  either,  why  I  radiate.  If  you 
don't  keep  a  cricket  in  your  studio  for  me,  I  shall 
have  to  sit  in  your  lap  ;  and  I've  gained  five  pounds 
this  summer.  Well,  the  classical  dictionary  will  do : 
it  is  quite  as  hospitable.  Avis?  " 

"Very  well,  Coy." 

"If  you  were  like  other  women, — which  you 
know  you  never,  never  will  be,  as  I've  said  in  your 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  157 

defence  a  hundred  times,  —  but  just  to  suppose  it, 
as  you  might  suppose  you  could  make  Parker-house 
rolls,  or  a  tatting  collar,  or  any  other  chef  d'oeuvre 
of  which  your  nature  is  incapable  :  what  I  want  to 
know  is,  if  you  liked  a  man,  —  let  me  sharpen  that 
crayon  for  you  :  I  hate  to  sit  doing  nothing,  — if  you 
liked  a  real,  live,  dreadful  man,  do  you  suppose  you 
would  be  all  summer  finding  it  out  ?  ' ' 

i '  O  Coy !  Ask  me  some  conundrum  with  which 
my  education  has.  made  me  familiar.  But  what  is 
it,  Coy  ?  Who  is  he  ?  What  have  you  come  to  tell 
me?" 

Avis  laid  down  the  crayon,  pushed  the  sphinx  a 
little  away  from  her,  and,  gently  clasping  her  hands 
around  Coy's  neck,  looked  with  a  solemn  tenderness 
at  her. 

"  I  said  if  there  were,"  nodded  Coy  perversely. 
"You  generalize  from  insufficient  data,  Avis,  —  a 
mistake  said  to  be  common  to  women  and  reformers. 
But  speaking  of  men  —  you  know  all  about  Mr.  Os- 
trander  ?  If  you  don't,  I  have  a  lovely  bit  of  gossip 
for  you,  —  a  Mnd  of  Sevres  specimen,  very  rare.  I 
like  to  gossip  in  Harmouth :  it  is  considered  so  un- 
intellectual." 

4 '  I  knew  that  there  was  some  hope  of  Mr.  Os- 
trander's  recovery."  Avis  removed  her  arms  from 
Coy's  neck,  and  took  up  her  charcoal.  "Father 
said  so  this  week.  I  have  heard  nothing  else." 

"  You  didn't  know  that  he  was  in  Harmouth?  " 

"In  Harmouth?" 


158  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  He  was  brought  here  last  night."  Coy,  on  the 
dictionary,  waited  with  a  pretty,  expectant  look, 
perhaps  to  be  questioned  further;  but  Avis  asked 
no  questions.  She  replied  that  she  had  supposed 
him  to  be  in  New  Hampshire,  and  finished  sharpening 
the  charcoal  slowty. 

"  Guess  now,  Avis,  where  he  is  staying.  Just 
guess." 

"  I  never  guessed  any  thing  in  my  life." 

"Your  superior  women  never  can.  Don't  mind 
it,  dear:  it's  a  deficiency  common  to  your  class. 
Give  it  up?  At  Mr.  Stratford  Allen's." 

"  Mr.  Allen  is  very  kind,"  said  Avis,  after  a 
momentary  silence. 

"  And  so,"  said  Co}T,  "  is  Barbara, — very  kind." 

"Barbara  is  a  good-hearted  girl,"  urged  Avis 
honestly.  "I  don't  like  to  hear  women  speak  of 
one  another  in  that  tone,  Coy." 

"  Mr.  Allen  went  on  as  far  as  Washington  to 
bring  him  home,"  proceeded  Coy,  ignoring  the 
rebuke.  "Mr.  Ostrander  had  no  brother  or  father 
to  depend  upon,  and  Stratford  Allen  is  always  doing 
such  things.  He  wouldn't  let  him  go  to  those  hot 
college-rooms.  And  I  believe,  in  point  of  fact,  it  was 
thought  the  mother  was  too  old  to  be  any  thing  but  a 
burden  in  a  sick-room :  so  New  Hampshire  was  just 
put  quietly  out  of  the  question.  And  here  comes  in 
the  advantage  of  being  your  brother's  housekeeper. 
All  that  Christian  self-sacrifice  and  grateful  patriot- 
ism can  do,  Barbara  will  see  to  it  is  done,  you 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  159 

may  depend.  There  hasn't  been  such  a  dainty  bit 
of  household  art-decoration  as  that  in  Harmouth 
circles  this  many  a  day.  Meanwhile,  poor  Mr.  Os- 
trander  is  still  very  ill,  and  greatly  exhausted  with 
the  journey." 

Avis  put  away  her  charcoal,  and,  rising,  hunted 
in  her  portfolio  for  a  model  of  her  sphinx,  then  for 
a  blender,  then  for  the  chamois- skin  and  chalk. 
After  a  little  delay  she  sat  down  again,  and  began 
touching  in  the  values  of  the  sketch  with  a  firm  and 
conscientious  hand. 

"Now,"  she  said  gravely,  "since  we  cannot 
help  Mr.  Ostrander,  — you  or  I,  —  what  is  it  about 
that  other  man,  Coy?  Am  I  not  fit,  not  enough 
like  other  women,  to  hear?"-  The  point  of  the 
blender  trembled  a  little  against  the  sphinx's  chin. 

"  And  you  haven't  been  to  see  me  for  a  fortnight, 
Coy!" 

"Avis,"  said  Coy  with  judicial  solemnity,  "I 
have  done  the  best  I  could  by  you.  We  weren't 
engaged  till  last  night ;  and  I  haven't  even  told  my 
mother  yet.  I'm  going  to  make  John  do  that.  It 
is  with  falling  in  love  as  it  is  with  religion,  —  your 
parents  are  the  last  people  to  know  when  you've 
been  converted.  At  any  rate,  that's  the  way  at  our 
house.  It's  a  family  awkwardness  we  have.  I'd 
rather  be  disinherited  than  tell  my  mother  I  loved  a 
man.  She  married  father  because  she  RESPECTED 
him.  I've  heard  her  say  so.  So  I  poked  John  in  at 
the  front-door  this  morning,  to  have  it  well  over 


160  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

with,  and  I  ran  out  across  lots,  and  over  here  to 
you.  It  was  mean,  but  unavoidable.  John  will 
hare  no  trouble :  he's  precocious,  patriotic,  and 
Dious, — three  harmonious  p's.  He  got  one  very 
"becoming  scar  in  the  army.  He's  several  years  too 
young  to  have  been  called  to  the  Central  Church. 
And  there's  been  a  revival  already  since  he  was 
settled.  Mother  will  cr}r  a  little,  and  be  as  happy 
as  a  kind-hearted  old  lady  with  a  funeral  to  go  to." 

4 'And  you,"  said  Avis,  laying  down  her  work, 
and  once  more  bringing  the  tips  of  her  fingers 
together  about  Coy's  neck,  "  you  are  happy,  Coy? 
There.  Hush  !  I  see.  It  wasn't  fair  to  make  you 
look  like  that." 

Avis's  sense  of  awe  increased.  It  seemed  to  her 
a  kind  of  rudeness  for  her  to  sit  and  watch  this 
young,  transfigured  face.  She  had  almost  a  con- 
sciousness of  indelicacy,  as  if  she  had  usurped  one 
of  John  Rose's  new  and  sacred  rights,  in  having 
surprised  Coy  into  the  expression  with  which  —  half 
kneeling,  with  both  arms  about  Avis's  waist,  and  her 
face  uplifted  —  she  regarded  her. 

The  two  women  sat  for  a  little  space  in  silence ; 
Avis  still  with  that  delicate  action  of  the  hands 
which  hovered  about,  but  did  not  rest  upon  Coy,  as 
if  she  had  become  a  holy  object  that  she  might  not 
touch.  There  was  something  very  noticeable  in  this 
reticent  and  reverent  motion.  She  was  thinking 
how  far  apart,  all  at  once,  and  by  one  little  word, 
she  and  this  other  woman,  scarcely  younger  than 


THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS.  161 

herself,  scarcely  more  full  of  unexpressed  life, 
seemed  to  have  been  thrust. 

"How  natural,"  she  said  rather  wistfully, — 
"how  natural  it  must  seem  to  be  so  happy!  " 

"It  is  as  natural  as  life,"  said  Coy,  suddenly 
starting  to  her  feet,  —  "so  natural,  that  I  think 
John  will  expect  me  by  this  time.  I'll  tell  you 
more  about  it  all  some  other  day.  But  there's 
really  nothing  to  tell,  Avis.  He  propounded  the 
conundrum,  and  I  gave  it  up.  We  just  loved  each 
other,  and  so  we're  going  to  be  married.  That's 
ah1,"  added  Coy  simply. 

"  It  sounds  a  simple  matter,  as  you  put  it,"  said 
Avis,  smiling  in  rather  a  lonely  way. 

"And  I  don't  mean  to  make  fun  of  John's 
revivals,"  said  Coy,  turning  in  the  doorway.  "If 
there  were  more  like  John  in  the  world,  there'd  be 
less  like  —  mother,  perhaps.  When  he  was  in  col- 
lege, don't  you  know  how  he  used  to  say  he  should 
have  to  be  a  minister  to  keep  himself  straight  ?  It 
sounded  mean ;  but  it  was  only  brave.  And  now 
there  isn't  a  thread,  not  a  shred,  of  cant  in  him. 
To  the  bottom  of  his  soul  he  means  what  he  says, 
and  says  what  he  means,  when  he  tries  to  save  a 
soul.  John  believes  people  have  got  to  be  saved. 
So  I  have  given  him  a  chance  to  try  his  hand  on  me. 
But  I  shall  never  be  half  good  enough  for  him, 
never ! ' ' 

When  Coy  had  crossed  the  garden,  she  came  back, 
and,  putting  her  face  in  at  the  half-open  door, 
said,  — 


162  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Avis,  there's  only  one  little  matter  that  troubles 
me." 

Avis,  uncovering  the  sphinx,  looked  interroga- 
tively around. 

"  It  is  Barbara  Allen's  curls." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  163 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"  What's  death?    You'll  love  me  yet! "  —  BROWNING. 

"  Loved  for  we  did,  and  like  the  elements, 
That  know  not  what  nor  why."  —  Two  NOBLE  KINSMEN. 

"VTOW  and  then  a  feature,  an  attitude,  an  accent, 
-LA  gets  a  mathematical  hold  of  our  imaginations, 
as  far  removed  as  is  possible  from  the  aesthetic  or 
magnetic  way,  yet  more  imperious  than  either  ;  like 
the  pattern  of  the  wall-paper  in  the  room  which  has 
known  some  tragedy  or  ecstasy  of  our  lives.  We 
sit  enchained  by  a  trick  of  speech  in  the  man  we 
hate,  or  the  cut  of  the  brow  in  the  creature  we 
despise,  the  shadow  under  the  lip  of  the  stranger 
we  neither  expect  nor  care  to  meet  again,  or  the 
glance  of  the  friend  in  whose  broken  faith  eternity 
could  not  tempt  us  to  confide.  These  things  hap- 
pen as  the  comets  march  and  countermarch,  by  laws 
deeper  than,  though  apparently  subservient  to,  ca- 
price. 

Something  of  this  soil  occurred  to  Philip  Os- 
trander  as  he  lay  through  the  long  September  days 
in  Stratford  Allen's  luxurious  guest-room,  wooing, 
more  slowly  than  might  have  been  expected  of  his 
youth  and  health,  an  escaping  soul  to  remain  in  a 
mutilated  body.  He  had  been  very  near  death. 


164  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Of  this,  though  no  one  had  told  him  so,  he  was 
fully  aware.  He  had  enlisted  in  a  reckless  temper, 
like  —  who  can  count  how  many  other  young  men  ? 
to  whom  the  war  offered  the  quickest  and  most  inci- 
sive road  to  a  glorious  solution  of  inglorious  per- 
sonal difficulties. 

Ostrander  had  the  refracting,  not  the  absorbing 
nature,  in  which  ambition  kindles  under  emotion, 
like  the  maple-leaf,  whose  heart  the  autumn  seeks 
earliest,  and  earh'est  deserts.  A  keen  passion  like 
vanity,  a  strong  one  like  love,  or  a  subtle  one  like 
that  of  immediate  personal  sway,  transfigure  the 
resolve  of  such  a  nature,  only  so  long  as  they  may 
focus  upon  it.  He  would  have  felt  himself  humili- 
ated to  own  to  another  man  how  impossible  he  had 
found  it  to  dedicate  to  a  science  of  which  he  be- 
lieved himself  to  be  enthusiastically  appreciative,  the 
life  which  a  woman's  foot  had  bruised.  Yet  he 
felt  no  more  degradation  in  admitting  this  to  him- 
self than  he  did  at  admitting  the  beating  of  his 
heart.  Perhaps  we  may  say  he  made  as  little  resist- 
ance to  it. 

The  position  reserved  for  him  in  Harmouth  Col-' 
lege  ceased  to  possess  those  elements  of  attraction 
which  he  considered  conditions  of  success  for  him- 
self in  any  thing,  as  soon  as  he  found  himself  com- 
pelled to  undertake  it  in  teeth  of  the  precise  expe- 
rience awaiting  the  man  who  has  to  adjust  the  hunger 
of  a  strong  nature  to  the  famine  of  a  denied  love. 
This,  as  he  assumed,  was  the  fault  of  his  tempera- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  165 

xnent.     He  yielded  to  it  as  he  would  to  a  distaste 
for  a  poem  or  a  pie. 

The  world  was  wide.  A  Harmouth  professorship 
was  not  an  undue  part  of  it.  One  man  would 
answer  about  as  well  as  another  to  fill  any  mould, 
unless,  perhaps,  the  chalices  of  life ;  and  it  could 
hardly  be  said  that  the  veins  of  his  nature  throbbed 
with  sacramental  wine,  only  a  serviceable,  secular 
brand.  It  was,  indeed,  he  thought,  indicative  of  a 
narrow,  if  not  an  arrogant  fancy,  to  suppose  that  it 
made  much  difference,  in  the  end,  who  undertook 
any  given  little  portion  of  the  work  of  his  age : 
these  youthful  enthusiasms  were  interchangeable. 
If  he  were  shot,  there  would  be  one  indifferent 
geologist  less  in  the  world,  possibly  one  grieving 
woman  more.  He  had  moments  in  which  he  had 
dared  believe  that  she  would  mourn  for  him.  He 
found  these  inexpressibly  and  mystically  sweet. 
Regret  in  a  nature  like  hers  might  easily  turn  into 
tenderness,  when  her  beautiful,  fierce  maidenhood 
was  forever  safe  from  its  encroachment.  Death 
would  not  be  a  costly  price  to  pay  for  that  subtle 
and  constraining  mastery  of  her  soul  which  repent- 
ant grief  and  virgin  widowhood  would  give  him. 
Nay,  the  barren  chance  of  this  seemed  worth  far 
bitterer  than  a  soldier's  fate.  There  would  be  a  few 
robust  physical  pangs,  more  or  less,  perhaps  the 
inevitable  homesickness  to  be  expected  at  first  from 
entering  an  unknown  life,  the  relief  consequent 
upon  leaving  one  with  which  he  was  at  present  thor- 


166  'THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

oughly  dissatisfied,  then  the  wide  spaces  and  free 
chances  of  a  spiritual  economy  in  which  to  make 
his  nature  worthy  of  approach  to  hers,  as,  by  an  in- 
stinct deeper  than  the  reverent  humility  of  newly- 
awakened  love,  he  felt  that  it  was  not  likely  to  be- 
come, in  the  conditions  of  this.  For  Ostrander 
believed  in  another  life.  Fifteen  years  ago,  an 
educated  young  man  did  not  find  it  absolutely  im- 
perative to  doubt  the  immortality  of  his  own  soul. 
He  had,  therefore, — for  it  was  thus  that  he  loved 
this  woman,  with  all  the  strength  and  the  weakness, 
with  the  heights  and  the  depths,  of  his  nature,  — 
gone  into  the  army,  moved  by  a  profound  and  intel- 
ligent hope,  that  he  might  never  come  out  of  it. 

When,  however,  the  shot  struck,  he  had  grappled 
with  death  as  manfully  as  most  life-sick  young  crea- 
tures do,  if  given  the  chance ;  for,  as  he  fell,  his 
major's  horse  toppled  over  on  him.  It  was  the 
struggle  consequent  on  the  effort  to  free  himself 
from  so  hideous  a  death,  rather  than  the  wound  (not 
in  itself  deadly) ,  which  had  made  the  nature  of  his 
peril.  The  pierced  lung  was  badly  bruised. 

Through  the  sultry  days  and  cooling  nights  in 
which  the  first  breath  of  autumn  crept,  his  mind  had 
stirred  sluggishly  towards  the  positions  in  which 
death  had  met  it.  His  medical  training  told  him 
that  this  was  his  most  hopeful  symptom,  and  one  to 
be  fostered.  He  yielded  himself  peacefully  to  the 
little  eddies  of  a  sick-room  existence.  He  would 
have  been  glad  to  forget  that  the  whole  round  world 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  167 

was  not  bounded  by  the  daintily-decorated,  scented, 
and  soothing  spot  in  which  his  recovery  met  him. 
He  would  have  been  glad  to  forget  that  there  was 
any  other  woman  in  the  world  than  this  excellent 
sister  of  a  good  fellow  whose  kingly  hospitality  was 
likely  to  save  his  life.  He  experienced  a  peculiar 
sense  of  relief  in  the  presence  of  a  simple  feminine 
nature  lending  itself  to  these  delicate  cares  with 
which  he  felt  himself  surrounded  unobtrusively,  as 
he  was  with  the  pale,  cool  pearl- tint  of  the  walls, 
the  select  engravings,  the  luxurious  knick-knacks  of 
the  toilet  or  the  medicine-table,  the  exquisite  service 
of  his  breakfast,  or  the  pattern  of  ferns  on  the  lace, 
to  which  the  Venetian  blinds  lent  a  suifusive  wood- 
land tint. 

Awaking  one  morning,  several  da}Ts  after  his  re- 
turn to  Harmouth,  from  the  state  of  semi-conscious 
exhaustion  into  which  the  hot  journey  had  thrown 
him,  he  had  been  made  aware  of  a  distinct  and  new 
sensation  of  optical  pleasure.  For  the  first  time,  he 
perceived  within  the  hazy  lighting  and  shading  of  the 
room  a  soft  outline  upon  which  his  eye  wandered, 
rested,  and  remained,  with  the  wide,  blind  impulse 
of  a  baby's  on  a  sunbeam.  It  was  the  outline  of  a 
woman's  neck. 

It  was  a  delicate  neck,  of  not  too  muscular  nor  yet 
too  full  a  curve  ;  of  the  sensitive  fairness  which  ac- 
companies umber  tints  in  the  hair,  eyes,  and  brow. 
The  hair  was  brushed  well  up  from  it,  lingering  re- 
luctantly in  little  rings,  of  which  it  was  difficult  to 


168  'THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

express  the  images  of  endearment  that  they  pre- 
sented involuntarily  to  the  mind,  as  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  those  which  we  receive  from  tendrils  or 
from  the  shadow  of  tendrils  upon  a  ripe  leaf.  Thrown 
high  over  a  comb,  two  or  three  curls  fell,  leaning 
lightly,  and  yielding  with  an  almost  imperceptible 
stir  to  the  motions  of  the  wearer's  breath. 

The  sick  man's  fancy  had  from  that  time  found 
itself  curiously,  but  not  ungratefully,  subject  to  the 
outline  of  those  curls  ;  pursuing  it  idly  in  his  weak- 
est hours,  with  interest  in  his  stronger  ones  ;  tracing 
the  exact  course  of  a  lock  that  defied  him  like  the 
pattern  of  an  old  lace  ;  watching  for  the  resumption 
of  certain  broad  lights  or  warm  shadows  that  he  saw 
yesterday ;  disappointed  if  they  did  not  re-appear ; 
nervously  fretful  sometimes  if  he  could  not  under- 
stand why,  when  she  turned  her  head,  one  curl  would 
fall,  and  another  only  nestle  closer  to  its  place  ;  busy 
now  and  then  in  putting  them  into  imaginary  order 
upon  his  finger.  He  once  heard  a  celebrated  beauty 
say,  that,  if  she  could  possess  but  one  physical  attrac- 
tion, it  should  be  that  of  pliant  and  abundant  hair. 

"Miss  Barbara,"  he  had  said  one  day,  "do  you 
ever  arrange  your  hair  in  any  other  way?" 

"  Do  you  not  like  it?"  she  answered,  turning  her 
neck  slowly.  She  generally  sat  with  her  profile  to- 
wards him. 

"  Amazingly." 

"  Does  it  have  a  nervous  effect  on  you  in  any  way, 
—  to  see  the  curls  fly,  I  mean?  I  can  change  it  if 
it  annoys  you." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  169 

"  It  does  not  annoy  me  in  the  least.  But  I  should 
like  to  see  it  changed  —  for  once,"  he  demanded,  in 
the  idly  autocratic  tone  of  the  spoiled  convalescent. 

"Certainly,"  said  Barbara.  "I  will  do  it  up 
plainly  some  day,  if  you  wish.  I  will  try  and  re- 
member it." 

But  she  never  did,  it  chanced,  remember  it. 

Certainly  there  never  was  a  better  nurse  than  Bar- 
bara Allen,  —  soft  of  step,  and  quiet  of  dress  ;  sure  of 
the  right  word  at  the  right  time,  yet  mistress  of  long 
silences  ;  never  taxing  a  weak  and  wearied  attention 
with  chatter  about  her  china,  yet  capable  of  bringing 
the  English  breakfast-tea  in  a  lotus-leaf,  and  the  ice- 
water  in  a  pond-lily ;  competent  to  adjust  the  color 
of  the  doyley  to  the  prevailing  tint  of  one's  supper ; 
throwing  an  atmosphere  of  domestic  frankness  about 
a  homeless  man  when  her  brother  was  in  the  room ; 
just  brushed  in  Ms  absence  by  a  poised  reserve  ;  per- 
ceptive of  the  precise  moment  when  speech  is  a  strain, 
and  silence  an  oppression,  and  a  song  of  Schubert's, 
touched  in  the  twilight,  should  stir  like  a  spirit 
through  the  quiet  house  ;  full  of  those  delicate  and 
pictorial  resources  of  which  returning  strength  is 
least  likely  to  become  ungratefully  critical. 

"  You  have  been  so  kind  to  me  !  "  said  Ostrander, 
the  day  that  he  took  his  first  step  into  the  cool  hall, 
and  she  drew  out  the  white  linen  ottoman  for  him 
from  the  direct  draught,  and  took  the  cricket  at  his 
feet,  there  being  no  other  seat  there  for  her,  —  "so 
kind,  that  it  seems  a  sort  of  rudeness  or  affectation 


170  -THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

for  me  to  express  a  gratitude  that  must  only  deepen 
with  time." 

"  Stratford  and  I  are  so  glad!"  said  Barbara 
warmly.  "It  is  the  only  very  visible  way  we  have 
had  open  to  us  of  doing  our  little  share  for  the  meb 
who  are  imperilling  their  lives  for  us.  The  obligation 
is  all  on  our  side,  Mr.  Ostrander.  And  you  have 
been  such  a  delightfully  romantic  invalid,  it  has  been 
like  having  a  poem  or  a  story  alive  in  one's  own 
house.  How  do  you  think  we  are  going  to  get  along 
on  plain  prose  when  you  are  gone?  " 

"  Shall  you  miss  me?  "  asked  Ostrander,  leaning 
back  upon  the  white  ottoman,  and  watching  her 
dreamily.  It  was  a  graceful  pose  she  had  upon  the 
cricket ;  and  the  low  wind  was  busy  with  her  hair. 
Barbara  lifted  her  brown  eyes ;  but  they  fell,  and 
she  said  nothing.  She  was  content  to  be  watched 
like  that.  Why  spoil  an  innocent  pleasure  by  talk- 
ing? 

"  So  much?"  continued  Ostrander  in  a  lower 
tone,  clasping  his  hands  behind  his  head,  and  bring- 
ing his  lips  together  under  his  bright  beard.  "I 
don't  know  but  it  is  worth  a  man's  being  shot,  to 
be  first  cured,  and  then  missed  —  so." 

Now,  as  Ostrander  could  never  have  sat  with 
downcast  eyes  listening  to  his  own  voice,  its  effect 
could  hardly  have  been  a  measurable  thing  with  him. 
And  then  he  was  very  grateful,  and  at  that  moment 
he  was  filled  with  the  tender  flood  of  returning  life  — 
and  Barbara  happened  to  be  there. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  171 

% 

Tea,  to  which,  for  the  first  time,  Ostrander  stag- 
gered down,  was  late  that  night.  Barbara  always 
waited  tea  for  her  brother.  Stratford  Allen,  who  had 
failed  to  develop  that  naturally  superior  manner  to 
be  expected  of  the  business-man  who  is  known  to 
have  endowed  a  university,  came  in  with,  perhaps, 
an  unwonted  touch  of  his  habitual,  modest,  sad  re- 
serve. When  Barbara  asked  him  why  he  was  so  late, 
he  said  he  had  been  at  the  treasurer's  office. 

' '  Did  you  ask  Professor  Dobell  about  those  Ger- 
man books  for  his  department?  "  asked  Barbara. 

"Yes  :  I  stopped  at  his  house  a  moment,"  said  her 
brother,  coming  up  to  give  his  cordial  hand  to  Os- 
trander. "  I  think  }TOU  had  better  run  over  there  to- 
morrow, Barbara.  Miss  Avis  has  got  hurt  rowing." 

' '  Oh  !  Much  hurt  ?  —  Mr.  Ostrander,  not  in  the 
draught,  please  :  take  this  chair." 

"  Nothing  serious,  I  hope ;  but  a  troublesome 
bruise.  She  was  pulling  her  boat  in  through  a 
heavy  sea,  and  brought  her  thumb  between  the 
rock  and  the  bows  somehow.  She  made  light  of  it ; 
but  it  will  cripple  her  for  a  while,  I  am  afraid.  — Os- 
trander, how  pleasant  this  is  !  Shall  I  help  you  to 
the  very  last  huckleberry  that  was  to  be  found  in 
New  England?" 

After  tea,  Ostrander  said  that  he  wished  to  try  a 
step  or  two  upon  the  piazza.  Stratford  objected ; 
but  Barbara  said  it  was  her  rule  that  sick  people 
(of  any  thing  be}^ond  a  common-school  education) 
should  be  allowed  to  do  as  they  liked.  She  came 


172  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

up  to  him  with  a  rose-bud  in  one  hand  and  his  over- 
coat in  another,  — his  winter  coat :  Barbara's  lightest 
sentiment  had  a  sufficiently  practical  ballast.  She 
pinned  in  the  rose,  a  plump,  hot-house  bud  of  a 
sturdy  color ;  one  long  sinuous  curl  fell  over  it. 
Ostrander  drew  his  furred  lappel  over  the  flower 
with  an  exquisite  motion  which  an  artist  or  novelist 
would  not  have  wasted  upon  any  thing  less  than 
a  Madonna  lity.  With  his  peculiar  tenderness  of 
touch,  and  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  her,  he  folded  it 
slowly  against  his  heart. 

"As  if  it  had  been  —  a  woman,*'  thought  Bar- 
bara with  a  discreet  vagueness  of  imagination. 
Barbara  had  a  high  respect  for  a  man  who  could 
receive  a  favor  of  hers  with  a  grace  so  princely. 
But  she  did  not  wish  she  were  that  rose.  Ostrander, 
still  touching  his  coat  with  a  certain  gentleness,  crept 
out  into  the  rapidly  chilling  air. 

He  had  come  out  to  try  his  strength.  He  meant 
to  know  for  himself  about  that  hurt  hand.  He 
crawled  along  with  a  suppressed  fierceness  when  he 
found  how  weak  he  was.  The  fat  rose-bud  slipped 
and  fell.  He  did  not  see  it,  and  stepped  on  it  twice 
in  crossing  the  piazza-floor. 

It  was  impossible  to  have  better  intentions  than 
aunt  Chloe's,  when  any  member  of  the  family  was  by 
illness  or  otherwise  thrown  defencelessly  upon  them. 
When  Avis  had  been  for  three  days  incapacitated 
for  work  by  her  little  accident,  aunt  Chloe  resolutely 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  173 

took  her  sewing,  and  went  to  find  her.  It  was  non- 
sense to  be  moping  out  there  like  a  chilled  blue-jay. 
Avis  must  be  entertained.  The  first  condition  of 
recovery,  were  it  from  a  broken  thumb  or  a  broken 
head,  aunt  Chloe  held,  was  to  be  got  out  of  one's 
self.  And,  in  the  nature  of  things,  we  find  those 
people  to  be  self-absorbed  who  are  not  occupied  in 
our  own  particular  forms  of  benevolence,  precisely 
as  we  find  those  irreligious  who  are  not  of  our  own 
especial  faith.  The  main  trouble  with  Avis,  aunt 
Chloe  reasoned,  was,  that  she  did  not  go  out  of  her- 
self. 

What  if  she  could  not  paint  for  a  week  or  two  ?  A 
soldier's  box  could  be  packed,  at  all  events  a  Har- 
mouth  soup-ticket  could  be  distributed  with  any 
energetic  left  hand.  It  may  be  that  aunt  Chloe's 
stout  impulse,  like  that  of  many  another  outflowing 
heart,  sometimes  struck  nearer  to  a  truth  than  the 
richer  but  less  objective  fancy. 

But  Avis  in  the  orchard,  flung ,  upon  the  short 
September  grass  with  her  Ruskin  and  Hawthorne, 
and  Mrs.  Jameson,  and  other  resources  not  so  im- 
mediately telling  upon  the  needs  of  the  age  as  the 
soup-tickets,  responded  to  aunt  Chloe's  sympathy 
with  the  assurance  that  she  was  not  in  pain,  and  fuUy 
occupied,  and  hoped  to  be  at  work  again  in  at  most 
a  fortnight. 

"  I  hope  so,  my  dear,  I'm  sure,"  said  aunt  Chloe, 
laboriously  seating  herself  beside  her,  and  unrolling 
a  package  of  metaphysical  shirts;  "for  it  must  be 


174  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

very  lonely,  having  so  few  resources  as  you  do.  I 
came  out  because  I  thought  it  bad  for  you  to  be  so 
much  alone." 

"  Thank  you,  auntie,"  said  Avis  in  a  sincere  tone, 
closing  her  book. 

"  How  Odd  all  this  is  about  Mr.  Ostrander  and  Bar- 
bara !  "  began  aunt  Chloe,  carefully  fitting  a  gusset. 
(Why  was  it,  that  it  always  made  Avis  frantic  to  see 
aunt  Chloe  fit  gussets?)  "It  is  the  last  thing  I 
should  have  thought  of.  Should  you  have  thought 
of  it?" 

"Perhaps  not,"  said  Avis;  "but  it  is  very  nat- 
ural." 

"I  hope,  for  her  sake,  it  will  prove  a  bond  fide  en- 
gagement," buzzed  aunt  Chloe  :  "  it  will  be  so  awk- 
ward for  her  otherwise  !  Though  it  isn't  a  choice  / 
should  have  made  for  Mr.  Ostrander.  I  sent  him 
some  nasturtiums  this  morning.  Avis,  let  me  see 
that  hand  once  more.  I  don't  understand  why  you 
should  look  so  fagged  out  over  it." 

"A  little  hurt  sometimes  causes  a  good  deal  of 
pain,"  said  Avis  rather  wearily.  She  threw  herself 
back  upon  the  brown  grass,  and  closed  her  eyes 
while  aunt  Chloe  talked.  It  irked  her,  this  enforced 
idleness,  more  than  she  could  remember  to  have 
been  irked  by  any  thing  since  she  sat  cutting  out 
night-clothes  with  aunt  Chloe,  on  the  dining-room 
table,  at  sixteen.  Just  now,  it  seemed  as  imperative 
to  be  busy,  as  action  to  the  swimmer  ;  and  her  efforts 
to  exchange  her  palette  for  her  books  had  been  pur- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  175 

poseless  and  spasmodic,  like  the  motions  of  the  sink- 
ing. She  seldom  read  while  she  was  at  work,  and 
could  recall  many  a  sketch  which  had  been  ruined 
by  the  morning  paper.  She  could  not  set  the  fire 
of  creation  to  boiling  the  tea-kettle  of  acquisition. 
Especially  had  this  experience  proved  untimely  and 
unmerciful.  There  seemed  to  be  great  spaces  in  her 
nature,  into  which  she  neither  cared  nor  dared  to 
look,  and  which  the  events  of  the  summer  had  imper- 
ceptibly enlarged,  like  the  boundaries  of  a  conquer- 
ing country.  She  found  herself  now  with  a  kind  of 
terror  thrust  into  them  against  her  will. 

"My  dear,"  said  aunt  Chloe  with  unwonted  ab- 
ruptness, folding  the  gusset,  however,  before  she 
laid  it  down,  "I  don't  know  but  there  is  a  provi- 
dence in  this  accident,  after  all.  I  have  been  troubled 
about  you  for  a  long  time.  It  is  always  a  pity  for  a 
woman  to  become  dependent  upon  any  excitement 
outside  of  the  sphere  to  which  she  must,  of  course,  in 
the  end,  adjust  herself.  And  really,  Avis,  I  don't 
see  how  you  are  going  to  marry  in  that  studio.  I 
do  not  wish  to  speak  of  such  matters  with  any  in- 
delicate freedom,"  added  aunt  Chloe  with  her  old- 
fashioned  womanly  reserve,  which  Avis,  in  all  her 
life,  never  remembered  to  have  seen  broken  in  this 
way  before  ;  ' '  but  of  course,  my  dear,  }~ou  will  ex- 
pect to  marry." 

"No,"  said  Avis  gently,  with  the  perfectly  hope- 
less feeling  one  has  under  the  necessity  of  an  ex- 
planation which  kindliness  demands,  but  which  is 
sure  to  be  only  a  deepening  mystery  to  the  auditor. 


176  TfiE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  No,  auntie,  I  do  not  expect  to  marry." 

"  In  a  certain  way,"  replied  aunt  Chloe  with  grave 
hesitation,  "that  is  the  way  a  woman  should  feel. 
I  had  refused  your  uncle  twice  before  I  thought  of 
marriage.  I  am  glad  you  preserve  so  much  mod- 
esty about  such  matters.  Young  girls  now-a-days 
are  generally  so  different !  Of  course,  no  lady  will 
ever  allow  herself  to  become  interested  in  a  gentle- 
man till  he  has  positively  sought  her  in  marriage." 

Aunt  Chloe  rolled  up  her  work  as  she  uttered  this 
first  and  great  commandment,  upon  which  all  the  law 
and  prophets  of  womanhood  hung,  with  the  serene 
dignity  which  only  an  absolute  inability  to  conceive 
of  two  sides  to  a  question  can  give.  What  a  lady 
ought  not,  that,  of  course,  a  lady  never  did.  It  was 
scarcely  necessary  to  remind  any  niece  of  hers  of 
that.  But  aunt  Chloe  had  almost  a  sense  of  immod- 
esty in  having  spoken,  as  she  had  felt  it  her  duty  to 
do,  to  Avis.  Marriage  was  not  a  thing  for  women 
to  chatter  about.  But  equally  it  was  not  the  thing 
for  women  deliberately  to  put  themselves  beyond  the 
reach  of  that  honorable  institution,  which,  we  must 
admit,  was  ordained  of  Almighty  God,  and  neces- 
sary to  weak-minded  man.  And,  when  a  poor  moth- 
erless girl  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty-six  without 
any  apparent  appreciation  of  this  fact,  it  was  clearly 
the  duty  of  somebody  to  remind  her,  with  that  delicacy 
belonging  to  the  old-time  breeding,  of  the  mistaken 
and  undesirable  position  into  which  she  was  drifting. 

"  Not,"  said  aunt  Chloe,  hastening  to  a  virtuous 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  177 

qualification  of  her  unwonted  indiscretion, —  "not 
that  a  maiden  lady  cannot  li ve  a  very  useful  and  un- 
selfish life,  my  dear.  I  have  known  many  instances. 
But  I  think  you,  Avis,  would  be  happier  in  the  mar- 
ried state  ;  and  so  I  thought  I  would  take  an  oppor- 
tunity to  caution  you  a  little.  You  seem  to  be  so 
absorbed  in  that  painting,  that  somebody  must  think 
for  you.  And  now  Coy  has  gone,  and  Barbara  will 
soon  follow,  you  will  be  left  very  much  alone.  I  can- 
not deny  that  I  feel  some  anxiety  for  your  future." 

"  Thank  you,  auntie,"  said  Avis  again.  A  dull 
sense  of  disturbance  mingled  with  her  surprise  at 
aunt  Chloe's  unprecedented  expression  of  feeh'ng. 
She  was  glad  when  the  last  gusset  was  rolled  away, 
and  Julia  called  to  ask  if  she  should  scald  over  the 
marmalade. 

She  wandered  away  restlessly,  when  aunt  Chloe 
had  gone,  through  the  orchard,  over  the  meadow, 
across  the  field.  She  crushed  the  crisp  grass  idly. 
The  brown  butterflies  circled  over  her  head  ;  and  the 
grasshoppers  rose  and  fell  in  their  short  autumn  riot, 
which  lends  almost  a  pathos  to  a  creature  that  is 
alternately  repulsive  and  absurd,  as  the  throb  of 
any  ephemeral  life  must  do  in  its  last  delight.  Avis 
watched  them  with  a  sudden,  fierce  envy  :  they  would 
die  of  the  bitter  frost ;  but  they  had  leaped  to  the 
summer  sun. 

She  stopped  —  from  a  feeh'ng  too  ill  defined  to  be 
called  a  purpose,  perhaps  hardly  conscious  enough 
to  be  named  an  impulse — at  the  spot  where  she  had 


178  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

last  seen  and  spoken  with  Philip  Ostrander.  It  was 
broad,  white  September  noon.  The  narrow  shadow 
crept  crouching  against  the  feet  of  the  stone  wall. 

The  direct  touch  of  the  sun  fell  gratefully  ;  for  the 
morning  had  been  chill.  There  was  a  rising,  but  as 
yet  unagitated  wind,  which  appealed  to,  but  did  not 
stir,  the  purple  heart  of  the  sea  morning-glories  that 
sprang  from  the  sand  across  the  wall.  The  water 
had  the  superlative  and  unmated  meaning  of  a  Sep- 
tember sea.  The  near  waves  broke  weedless  and 
kindling,  clean  to  the  heart's  core,  like  a  nature 
burnt  holy  with  a  consecrated  passion.  All  the 
colors  of  the  tide  and  of  the  shore  compelled 
attention,  as  if  one  must  create  a  vocabulary  to 
express  them,  as  if  one  struggled  to  say,  A  blazing 
brown,  a  joyous  gray,  a  restless  green,  a  reticent 
red,  a  something  never  seen  before:  in  every  tint 
there  was  a  subtle  contradiction.  The  life  and 
death  of  the  year  wrestled  upon  the  face  of  the 
water.  The  whole  harbor  looked  to  Avis  like  some 
large  soul,  in  which  a  conflict  old  as  iime,  and  young 
as  hope,  and  eternal  as  nature,  and  sad  as  fate,  was 
impending.  By  and  by  the  harbor,  too,  must  freeze. 

A  pace  or  two  down  the  wall,  two  little  stunted 
spruces  grew,  — sparse,  wind-beaten  things,  shiver- 
ing away  from  the  sea  with  the  touching  action  of  all 
trees  upon  an  easterly  shore.  Avis,  stepping  along 
to  help  herself  up  by  the  assistance  of  their  shrink- 
ing branches,  climbed  the  stone  wall,  and  stood 
for  a  moment  between  them,  looking  across  the 
cliff,  and  down. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  179 

In  her  full  lithe  length  there,  a  perfect  panel 
against  the  sky  and  sea,  she  was  still  standing, 
when  she  heard  her  name  spoken  under  breath ;  and 
immediately  the  speaker  added,  — 

"Do  not  move,  I  pray  you;  do  not  even  turn 
your  head  just  this  moment." 

Neither  starting  nor  stirring,  without  comment  or 
inquiry,  she  obeyed.  Perhaps  her  breath  came  with 
some  swiftness  ;  for  she  seemed  to  sway  a  very  little 
in  standing.  In  her  pale  straw-colored  summer  dress, 
she  looked  like  a  delicate  flame,  slender,  and  ascend- 
ing against  the  sky. 

Still  without  turning,  she  gently  said, — 

"  This  is  long  enough,  I  think,  Mr.  Ostrander." 

"  Is  it?  Are  you  tired?  Ah !  Well,  I  am  self- 
ish. I  would  have  kept  you  there  much  longer. 
Well,  then,  if  you  must.  Shall  I  help  you  down?  " 

Then  she  turned.  Slowly,  like  a  statue  on  its 
pivot,  she  circled  towards  him  between  the  dark 
lines  of  the  two  trees,  and  slowly  opened  her  grave 
eyes  upon  his  face. 

Perhaps  she  was  not  thinking  that  he  would  be  so 
sorely  changed.  It  was  so  long  since  she  had  seen 
him !  Silence  had  been  heavy  between  them,  and 
the  shadow  of  death  had  overhung.  In  all  the 
strain  of  this  summer  she  had  thrust  herself  back 
upon  her  own  quiveringly-poised  imagination  —  a 
terrible  companion.  Upon  the  battle-field,  beneath 
the  shot,  within  the  blazing  hospital,  upon  the 
scorching  journey,  and  at  the  door  of  death,  she 


180  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

had  followed  him  as  one  follows  afar  off,  exchan- 
ging the  terror  of  that  which  is  for  the  horror  of  that 
which  may  be.  Her  mind  had  not  been  at  any  time 
laggard  in  its  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  he  lay, 
at  a  stone's  throw  from  her,  grappling  with  life, 
and  that  another  woman  rendered  him  the  tender 
offices  of  friendship  and  of  compassion. 

But  her  pictorial  instinct,  cruelly  loyal  to  her 
thus  far,  had  failed  her  at  last.  This  face,  this, 
which  he  lifted  to  her  now,  haggard  and  gray,  tense 
with  that  enforced  patience,  so  foreign  to  a  man,  that 
a  woman  instinctively  gauges  the  extent  of  his  phy- 
sical suffering  by  his  acquisition  of  it,  —  against 
this,  her  saddest  vision  had  not  fortified  her. 

Astronomy  happened  upon  a  beautiful  and  signifi- 
cant phrase  when  it  gave  us  "  energy  of  position," 
and  meant  us  to  understand  by  it  that  certain  sepa- 
rated bodies  are  far  apart,  with  great  spaces  to  travel 
to  reach  each  other. 

At  that  one  moment  the  energy  of  position  between 
these  two  seemed  an  immeasurable  thing.  Avis, 
perhaps  because  she  had  just  obeyed  him  in  standing 
still  to  be  looked  at,  had  turned  a  little  coldly. 
Where  she  stood  high  upon  the  wall,  her  health  and 
youth  and  color  seemed  to  cut  themselves  like  articu- 
late words  before  his  eyes.  He,  upon  the  side  of  the 
ascending  field,  crawled  weakly  towards  her.  He 
was  shattered  as  a  broken  column.  For  that  mo- 
ment they '  looked  steadily  and  silently  upon  one 
another. 


ME  STORY  OF  AVIS.  181 

Then  slowly,  furtively  as  an  unacknowledged 
motive  or  a  rebel  fancy,  there  crept  over  her  face  a 
change.  It  was  the  marvellous  and  magnificent 
change  wrought  upon  a  woman's  face  only  by  that 
compassion  which  steals  a  regent  to  the  palace  where 
Love  the  King  has  been  dethroned.  Nothing  is 
more  beautiful,  because  nothing  is  more  womanly, 
than  that  subsidence  of  the  muscles,  that  quiver  of 
the  nerves,  that  kindling  of  color,  and  luminous 
entreaty  of  the  eye. 

The  young  man  held  his  breath  before  it,  stirred 
with  a  perfectly  new  and  daring  hope.  He  felt,  that, 
had  he  come  to  her  again  in  the  power  of  his  man- 
hood, he  might  again  have  gone  as  he  came.  It  was 
his  physical  ruin  and  helplessness  which  appealed  to 
the  strength  in  her.  He  would  have  died  to  see  that 
lip  of  hers  tremble  so  —  for  him.  Now  he  saw  it  — 
and  lived.  He  had  exchanged  nothing  but  a  shot 
lung  and  life-long  feebleness  —  for  heaven.  He  drew 
a  weak  step  nearer  to  her,  and  held  out  his  arms. 

She  wavered  for  an  instant.  The  morning-glory 
behind  her,  across  the  wall,  wavered  as  much  in  the 
now  rising  wind.  Then,  with  a  low,  inarticulate  cry, 
she  stretched  both  hands  down  towards  him. 

He  took  them,  and  she  slid  down  from  the  wall, 
and  stood  beside  him.  She  did  not  offer  to  remove 
her  hands.  He  thought  she  was  unconscious  of  his 
touch,  for  she  had  not  yet  taken  that  broken,  piteous 
look  from  his  face. 

"  Oh !  "  she  said  indistinctly.  "  I  did  not  think  — 
I  did  not  know ' '  — 


182  TteE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


"You  did  not  know  I  was  so  changed?"  He 
gently  took  her  hurt  right  hand  by  the  wrist  as  he 
spoke,  holding  it  like  a  drooping  water-lily  by  the 
stem.  <  '  There,  I  must  have  hurt  you.  I  was  cruel  ; 
but  I  was  dazzled.  Poor  little  hand  !  There  is  9 
great  deal  of  suffering  in  a  little  hurt  like  this.  A 
bruise  is  so  much  worse  than  a  cut  —  in  hearts  01 
hands.  /  have  had  the  cut.  You  have  almost 
drawn  the  life-blood  out  of  my  soul,  I  think  ;  but 
you  —  you  have  been  bruised." 

A  wild  flash  of  dissent  or  protest  shot  across  her 
eyes  ;  but  the  quiver  of  her  lip  increased. 

"  All  this  time,"  he  went  on  in  the  pathetic  ac- 
cent which  mortal  illness  leaves  lingering  so  long 
upon  a  man's  voice,  "  you  have  sent  me  no  word, 
no  sign." 

She  silently  shook  her  head:  her  eyelids  looked 
heavy,  as  if  a  distinct  effort  only  prevented  them 
from  drooping. 

"  You  never  expressed  to  me  the  commonest  sym- 
pathies of  friendship." 

Imperfectly  she  said,  "  No." 

"I  lay,  pretty  weak,  watching,  day  after  day, 
thinking  perhaps  you  would  come,  or  speak  one  little 
word.  I  went  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death  without  you.  You  never  extended  a  finger- 
touch  to  help  me." 

"1  never  did." 

"  You  did  not  dare  !  " 

Then    her   eyelids  fell  ;    then  her  quivering  lip 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  183 

melted  ;  then  her  whole  face  broke  and  blazed.  She 
snatched  away  both  hands,  and  covered  it. 

"  Let  me  hear  you  say  it,"  he  demanded  with  a 
kind  of  solemn  authority  which  seemed,  for  the 
moment,  to  be  that  of  one  who  dealt  with  a  divine, 
not  a  human,  passion.  "  You  dared  not !  " 

"I  —  dared  —  not." 

"  Let  me  know  why  not." 

"  Because  you  did  not  —  ask  me  to." 

Scarlet  behind  her  shielding  hands  she  flung  out 
the  words. 

He  took  one  blind  step  towards  her. 

4 'If  I  had  asked  you  —  would  you  have  come? 
Did  you  care?  Did  you  want  to  come  —  when  I 
was  suffering  —  to  me  ?  ' ' 

"Oh!  every  day,  every  hour  —  there  was  not  a 
minute  —  for  so  many  cruel  weeks.  It  was  so  hard  ! 
Oh !  don't  think  I  am  crying :  it's  only  that  I  can- 
not get  my  breath  —  and  I  couldn't  go  —  I  was 
afraid"  — 

"You  were  afraid  you  loved  me !"  he  cried. 
"You  are  afraid  of  it  now." 

As  long  as  he  lived,  Ostrander  saw  in  dreams  the 
expression  of  exquisite  pain  with  which  she  dragged 
her  hands  away  from  her  face,  and  met  his  eye.  She 
seemed  like  a  creature  whose  throbbing  heart  was 
torn  out  of  her  live  body. 

"  If  this  be  love,"  she  slowly  said,  "  I  am  afraid 
I  love  you  now." 

He  staggered,  he  was  still  so  weak :  he  staggered, 


184  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

and,  putting  out  one  hand  upon  her  shoulder,  sank 
slowly  to  the  ground. 

"  Oh !  "  she  cried,  "  I  have  hurt  you !  " 

"No,  oh,  no!  Hush!  You  have  healed  me.  I 
am  well.  Only  let  me  rest  a  minute,  till  my  breath 
comes. "  He  leaned  panting  against  the  wall,  under 
the  scant  shade  of  the  storm-tormented  spruce. 

"Oh!  I  have  hurt  you,"  she  repeated,  kneeling 
beside  him.  "  What  can  I  say?  Is  there  any  thing 
that  I  can  do?" 

She  had  melted  into  a  gentleness  under  which  he 
felt  his  head  spin  giddily.  There  was  a  suppressed, 
appealing  accent  in  her  voice  which  he  had  never 
heard :  it  was  faint  as  the  first  golden  outline  of 
land  to  one  long  in  mid-ocean.  He  put  his  head 
back,  and  closed  his  eyes.  He  would  not  for  life's 
sake,  just  then,  have  seen  more  than  that  mistily 
throbbing  boundary.  It  was  as  much  as  he  could 
bear.  If  this  was  her  pity,  what  would  her  tender- 
ness be? 

When  he  had  grown  a  little  stronger,  he  turned, 
and  silently  looked  at  her.  Already  upon  her  rested 
that  indefinable  change,  on  the  hither  side  of  which, 
when  once  it  has  touched  her,  all  time  cannot  put 
a  woman's  face.  In  yielding  her  confession,  she 
seemed  already  to  have  yielded  some  impalpable 
portion  of  her  personality.  In  the  words  of  the  old 
story  of  chivalry,  "  her  soul  had  gone  out  of  her." 
Her  blinding  consciousness  of  having  taken  the  first 
step  in  a  road  which  led  to  some  indefined  but  im- 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  185 

perative  surrender  of  her  nature  had  an  effect  upon 
her  incalculable  to  one  familiar  only  with  a  simpler 
type  of  woman.  She  did  not  look  subdued,  only 
startled.  And,  when  he  reverently  extended  his  thin 
hand  again  towards  her,  she  shrank,  with  widening, 
fear-stricken  eyes. 

Just  then  Ostrander  thought  her  beautiful  terror 
of  him  more  precious  than  her  love. 

He  did  not  press  any  expression  of  his  feeling 
upon  her,  and  they  sat  quite  still,  and  the  live  noon 
pulsated  about  them. 

Presently  she  said  tremulously,  — 

"  You  are  so  weak  !  And  you  walked  across  this 
long  field :  how  will  you  ever  get  back  ?  I  am 
troubled  that  you  came." 

"I  can  go  anywhere,"  said  Ostrander  in  an  in- 
toxicated tone,  "  do  any  thing.  I  can  go  the  world 
over  ;  for  you  will  go  with  me." 

He  turned  to  her,  leaning  his  head  upon  one  wan 
hand  on  which  the  sunlight  drew  out  the  veins.  She 
turned  away.  She  could  not  just  then  say  the  word 
which  would  darken  sun,  moon,  and  stars  in  the  face 
of  a  man  who  looked  like  that.  Her  own  grew  tense 
and  pinched. 

"But  still,  as  you  say,"  said  Ostrander,  — whether 
wilfully  or  not  unconscious  of  this  movement,  —  "  I 
am  not  yet  very  strong.  Indulge  me.  Let  me  hear 
you  say  once  more  —  I'll  not  ask  for  it  but  once 
to-day — that  you  are  afraid  you  love  me." 

"Oh!  I  am  afraid  I  love  you!     There,  hush!" 


186  «£HE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

She  sprang  to  her  feet,  putting  her  finger  on  her  own 
lips. 

"  And  can  you  not  love  me  without  being  afraid? " 

She  shook  her  head,  her  eyes  beginning  to  wander 
from  side  to  side. 

"But  why?" 

"I  do  not  know.  I  am  made  so,"  defiantly. 
"Let  me  go.  Let  us  go  now  —  home,  somewhere. 
Oh,  I  forget!  I  am  cruel."  She  broke  into  a  peni- 
tent tenderness.  "  Are  you  rested?  Can  you  walk 
so  far  yet  ?  Can  you  go  ?  '  * 

"  One  moment."  Ostrander  rose  feebly,  and 
stood  beside  her.  His  startling  pallor  burned  as 
marble  does  if  thrust  into  the  full  sun,  as  if  it  were 
lighted,  not  from  without,  but  from  within.  He 
folded  his  arms  with  the  resolute  action  of  a  man 
who  thinks  that  is  the  safest  thing  to  do  with  them, 
before  he  said,  — 

"You  will  not  leave  me,  I  think  —  to-day  —  like 
this.  I  am  almost  too  sick  a  man  yet  to  be  left  — 
so." 

"  Do  you  appeal  to  my  pity  ?  "  she  flashed,  draw- 
ing a  step  back. 

"  No.     I  appeal  to  your  love." 

The  scorching  color  slowly  rose,  lighted,  sped, 
fired  her  face,  brow,  and  neck :  when  he  saw  it,  he 
knew  that  he  had  never  seen  her  blush  before.  She 
seemed  to  stand  imprisoned  by  that  blush,  as  if  it 
had  been  a  physical  paralysis  or  pain. 

"My  love,"  she  said  under  her  breath,  —  "my 
love  !  Do  you  know  to  what  you  are  appealing?  " 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  187 

' 4  Hardly,  —  yet , ' '  said  Ostrander  deliriously.  ' '  I 
am  not  strong  enough  to  know  to-day.  I  only  ask 
that  you  will  give  me  the  right  to  know  another  day 
—  to-morrow  —  when  you  will.  Is  it  too  much  to 
ask?" 

She  made  as  if  she  would  have  spoken  some  im- 
petuous word ;  but  a  glance  at  him  restrained  her. 
He  was  trembling  heavily,  and  his  breath  had  visibly 
shortened.  He  looked  very  ill.  Her  heart  leaped 
with  the  deep  maternal  yearning  over  suffering  that 
is  more  elemental  in  women  than  the  yearning  of 
maiden  or  of  wife.  Had  he  spoken  no  word  of  that 
other  love  to  her,  she  could  have  gathered  his  faint 
face  in  her  arms,  and  brooded  over  it  with  leaning 
cheek  and  sobbing  voice ;  but  this  other,  this  en- 
croaching, appalling  love,  which  she  felt  in  herself, 
as  yet,  only  as  the  presence  of  a  vague,  organic 
dread,  —  for  this,  nature  gave  her  no  speech  nor 
language  but  the  instinct  of  flight.  Yet  flight  now 
would  be  either  coquetry  or  cruelty,  and  of  both  she 
was  incapable." 

"  I  will  see  you,"  she  said  after  a  moment's  grave 
silence  —  "  yes,  I  will  see  you  again." 

Ostrander  was  sensitively  conscious  that  her  trans- 
parent honesty  could  not  wrest  even  from  her  com- 
passion a  distinct  mortgage  to  his  now  blinding 
hope.  But  he  felt  himself  as  physically  unequal  to 
enduring  just  then  any  possible  depression  of  that 
hope,  as  he  was  to  3ielding  any  larger  allowance  of 
the  scant  breath  with  which  he  must  compass  that 


188  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

widening  distance  across  the  dizzy  field.  He  paused, 
however,  to  say  with  a  certain  authority,  — 

"  You  understood  what  I  asked  in  asking  that  we 
may  talk  of  this,  that  we  may  talk  of  our  love, 
again  ?  ' ' 

"Yes.'* 

11  And  you  distinctly  grant  that  we  may  speak  of 
it,  so?" 

She  said,  "  If  you  stand  another  moment,  you 
cannot  crawl  home." 

"  I  shall  stand  till  you  grant  what  I  ask." 

"Oh,  I  grant  it!  Come!  How  shall  I  — how 
can  I  help  you  over  this  rough  ground  ?  I  wish  I 
were  a  man !  " 

"  I  am  sorry  not  to  sympathize  with  any  wish  of 
3rours,"  said  Ostrander,  breaking  into  a  boyish 
laugh  as  they  turned,  striking  down  into  the  brown 
stubbly  field.  "  And  now,  if  you  will  permit  me, — 
just  a  hand  upon  your  shoulder.  It  shall  be  a  light 
one  ;  and  I  shall  get  along  famously.  I  am  already 
stronger  than  I  was." 

She  lent  him  her  strong  young  shoulder  simply 
and  readily,  and,  he  leaning  upon  it  with  radiant 
eyes,  they  passed  over  the  conscious  meadows  in 
the  white  September  noon. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  189 


CHAPTER  X. 

"Are  there  not  ... 

Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver?  — 
One  —  when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge ; 
One  —  when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl. 
Festus,  I  plunge  ! " 

FEST.  I  wait  you  when  you  rise ! 

BROWNING'S  PARACELSUS. 

THERE  now  began  in  Avis  a  memorable  conflict, 
which  only  a  woman,  and  of  women  perhaps 
only  a  few,  can  articulately  understand. 

Ostrander  felt  that  it  was  only  accelerated,  but 
did  not  believe  that  it  was  in  any  other  sense 
affected,  by  the  state  of  extreme  exhaustion  into 
which  that  morning  by  the  shore  had  plunged  him. 

He  had  struggled  up  through  the  orchard  and  the 
garden,  and  as  far  as  the  studio,  where  he  sank  upon 
the  steps.  The  professor  and  aunt  Chloe  came  out 
and  got  him  into  the  house  ;  and  he  lay  for  the  rest 
of  the  day  upon  the  study  sofa,  sorely  spent. 

Nothing  would  have  suited  aunt  Chloe  better  than 
to  keep  him  beneath  her  motherly  wing ;  she  had 
small  secret  respect  for  Barbara  Allen's  nursing. 
What  could  a  girl  with  red  curls  know  about  gunshot 
wounds?  And  she  understood  that  Mr.  Ostrander 
had  been  kept  too  long  in  a  dark  room :  men,  like 
flowers,  waxed  strong  in  the  light  of  heaven.  Un- 


190  TfiE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

doubtedly,  Barbara  could  play  opera  music  for  him 
down  stairs ;  but  meanwhile,  who  was  to  rub  the 
poor  fellow's  feet?  or  exert  an  authoritative  influ- 
ence in  the  question  of  wet  or  dry  heat  in  an  attack 
of  pain? 

And  now  that  he  had  really  gone  back  to  the 
college  (too  soon,  as  it  had  clearly  proved),  she 
could  surely  take  him  in  hand  without  any  discourtesy 
to  the  Aliens.  Aunt  Chloe's  hospitality  expressed 
itself  with  the  touch  of  dignity,  which 5  though  it 
makes  acceptance  easy,  leaves  denial  graceful.  She 
did  not  press  the  matter,  when  Ostrander,  growing 
.  stronger  with  the  heavily  cooling  evening,  said  only 
that  it  was  best  for  him  to  go ;  and  he  returned  to 
his  old  quarters,  upon  which  he  held  some  hen  by 
courtesy  until  his  health  should  admit  of  a  definite 
settlement  of  his  relation  to  the  university. 

Avis  was  in  her  room  when  his  carriage  drove  up, 
and  did  not  come  down.  She  had  presented  herself 
through  the  day  only  so  much  as  was  necessary  to 
prevent  remark.  She  hovered  about  him  distantly. 
In  her  eyes  smouldered  a  dangerous  light.  When 
once  they  had  been  left  for  a  few  minutes  alone 
together,  as  the  afternoon  shadow  was  stooping  to 
the  study-floor,  she  had  fanned  him  conscientiously, 
to  be  sure  ;  but  she  had  not  broken  by  a  breath,  the 
expressive  silence  which  settled  like  a  third  person- 
ality between  them.  He  did  not  watch  her,  but  lay 
with  closed  eyes :  he  perceived  the  shining  of  her 
slender  wrist,  the  faint  scent  from  her  dress  and 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  191 

hair.  When  aunt  Chloe  came  in,  she  felt  his  pulse 
anxiously,  and  said  she  had  given  him  too  large  a 
dose  of  the  elderberry- wane. 

For  that  next  day  he  left  her  to  herself.  And  for 
yet  another  he  stood  afar  off  from  a  struggle  upon 
which  he  felt  it  unchivalric  to  urge,  more  than  need 
inevitably  be,  the  appeal  of  his  physical  wreck  and 
disordered  future.  Upon  the  third  day  he  came, 
leaning  upon  John  Rose's  arm.  Rose  had  found 
him  down  the  street,  crawling  along  home.  But 
John  Rose  had  an  appointment  with  a  lady,  and 
would  not  come  in. 

Aunt  Chloe  stood  in  the  hall  with  her  bonnet  on.  • 
She  was  going  to  a  very  special  female  prayer-meet- 
ing (of  which  far  be  it  from  me  to  speak  scepti- 
cally), appointed  to  further  the  discontinuance  of 
the  war.  And  the  professor  would  not  return  from 
the  lecture-room  till  after  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi  din- 
ner, which  would  be  a  late  (and  dyspeptic)  affair. 
Aunt  Chloe  thought  the  parlor  too  damp  for  Mr. 
Ostrander,  and  would  send  Avis  into  the  study. 

He  went  in,  and  awaited  her  with  such  nerve  as 
he  could  command :  he  would  not  have  turned  his 
transparent  hand  over  either  way  upon  his  chance. 
He  waited  what  seemed  an  immeasurable,  and  really 
was  rather  a  cruel  time. 

When  at  last  she  came  in,  down  the  long,  sunlit, 
home-like  room,  between  the  rows  of  books,  he 
was  shocked  to  see  the  traces  of  a  sleepless  and 
s  straggle  that  she  bore. 


192  tfHE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

He  met  her  with  some  indistinct,  impetuous  word 
of  endearment,  and  drew  her  beside  him  upon  the 
old  mahogany  sofe. 

"  You  suffer !  "  he  cried,  with  the  helpless  bewil- 
derment of  the  strongest  man  before  the  nature  of  a 
strong  woman.  "  I  would  make  you  so  happy  ;  and 
I  have  made  you  miserable  !  Why  do  you  suffer?  " 

He  held  her  fast  now  by  the  delicate  crossed 
wrists.  She  lifted  her  tender  face. 

"  I  suffer/'  she  said,  "  because  I  love  you." 

"Oh!     Is  that  an?" 

"  I  never  loved  any  other  man.  I  did  not  know 
•what  it  was  like." 

She  gently  drew  her  hands  away,  and  folded  them 
one  into  the  other. 

< '  And  what  is  it  like  ?    Can  you  tell  me  ? ' ' 

One  might  have  said  of  Ostrander's  voice  at  that 
moment,  what  was  said  once,  and  said  perfectly,  of 
music,  that  it  was  "  love  in  search  of  a  word." 

11  It  is  like  —  death,"  said  the  woman  slowly,  with 
a  deepening  shade  on  every  feature. 

"Then,"  said  the  young  man  lightly,  "I  am 
ready  to  die." 

But  he  was  sorry  to  have  made  her  smile  so  ;  for 
her  smile  did  not  encourage  him. 

"  It  is  civil  war,"  she  said. 

Spurred  by  a  momentary  stinging  sense  of  having 
retraced  his  own  footsteps,  he  leaped  on,  — 

"  Do  you  remember  that  you  were  to  give  me  an 
answer,  —  that  you  were  to  talk  with  me  of  our 
future,  to-day?  " 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  193 

"Yes." 

u  And  I  may  know —  now  —  what  it  is  you  have 
to  say  to  me?  " 

"Mr.  Ostrander,  in  all  my  life  —  since  I  was  a 
little  girl  —  I  have  never  known  one  hour  in  which 
I  expected — like  other  women  —  to  marry/' 

uYou  could  not  be  like  other  women,"  he  mur- 
mured ;  but  she  waved  his  words  away  with  her 
bruised  hand. 

"  I  don't  think  you  understand  what  that  means. 
I  never  could  conceive  of  myself  as  expecting  it. 
I  cannot  now.  I  do  not  wish  to  marry  any  man. 
It  seems  to  me  a  perfectly  unnatural  thing  that  any 
man  should  look  me  in  the  face,  and  ask  me  to  be 
his  wife  :  it  always  did.  And  that  a  man  of  your 
superior  intelligence  should  actually  expect  it  is  really 
incomprehensible  to  me." 

She  pelted  these  words  at  him  over  her  shoulder. 
Ostrander  heard  them  too  anxiously  to  smile.  It 
was  the  irrational  outcry  of  a  creature  rasped  and 
wrung  by  the  friction  of  her  own  nature  upon  itself. 
Only  a  woman  terrified  by  the  serried  advance  of  a 
mighty  love  upon  an  able  and  discomfited  resistance, 
could  have  spoken  those  words  in  that  way.  But 
only  a  few  men  in  the  world  would  have  instinctively 
understood  this.  Ostrander  was  not  one  of  these 
few.  It  seemed  to  his  dizzy  eyes  that  her  face 
receded  as  she  spoke,  growing  larger  but  dimmer 
with  every  word. 

"I  never  said  this  before,"  she  added,  with  the 


194  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

rapid,  incisive  utterance  of  one  who  is  expressing 
what  is  so  long  familiar,  and  so  long  suppressed,  as 
to  have  become  a  functional  part  of  the  being,  and 
to  exhale  involuntarily  like  the  breath.  "  I  never 
cared  enough  —  for  any  one  —  to  try  to  explain  it. 
But  I  must  tell  you.  I  had  rather  not  be  happy 
than  to  be  happy  at  such  a  cost  as  marriage  demands 
of  women." 

"Ah!  then  you  own  that  you  would,  that  you 
could,  be  happy."  He  hastened  to  entrap  her  in 
her  sweet  admission.  She  gave  him  one  transcend- 
ent look.  As  if  she  had  given  him  some  matchless 
wine  never  before  unsealed  for  human  lips,  his  head 
grew  light.  But  then  there  fell  a  swift  and  great 
withdrawal  upon  her ;  and  her  face  gathered  itself 
together  like  a  garrison,  while  she  said,  — 

"  I  told  you  something  about  this  long  ago,  before 
you  went  into  the  army,  that  day  by  the  shore  ;  but 
I  could  not  explain  it  then,  for  I  could  not  explain 
myself  then.  Every  thing  that  I  felt  then  has  inten- 
sified. With  my  feeling  for  you  has  deepened  this 
other  feeling.  The  more  I  care  for  you,  the  more  I 
shrink  from  what  you  ask." 

"  Let  us  talk  of  this  quietly  now,  and  reasonably," 
said  Ostrander  in  his  low,  vibrant  way.  "I  will 
urge  nothing  upon  }'ou.  Onl}r  let  us  reason  about  it. 
Marriage  is  not  to  be  treated  with  such  personal 
irreverence  or  rebellion,  I  think.  It  is  really  the 
best  plan  Almighty  God  could  contrive  for  us.  It 
is  his  will  that  men  and  women  should  love  one 
another,  and,  loving,  marry." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  195 

u  But  I  do  not  see  it  to  be  his  will  for  me,"  urged 
Avis.  "He  has  set  two  natures  in  me,  warring 
against  each  other.  He  has  made  me  a  law  unto 
myself — He  made  me  so.  How  can  I  help  that?  I 
do  not  say,  Heaven  knows !  that  I  am  better,  or 
greater,  or  truer  than  other  women,  when  I  say  it  is 
quite  right  for  other  women  to  become  wives,  and 
not  for  me.  I  only  say,  If  that  is  what  a  woman 
is  made  for,  I  am  not  like  that:  I  am  different. 
And  God  did  it." 

There  was  a  solemn  but  yet  submissive  arraign- 
ment in  these  words,  and  in  the  tone  with  which 
they  were  uttered,  to  which,  at  that  moment,  Os- 
trander  found  no  ready  lover's  argument  of  a  texture 
large  enough  to  be  laid  against  them. 

"  Even  if  I  had  no  work,  no  life,  of  my  own," 
she  continued  less  calmly,  "  I  think  it  would  be  the 
same,  though  I  cannot  tell.  But  I  have  my  work, 
and  I  have  my  life.  I  was  not  made  to  yield  these 
to  any  man.  I  was  not  made  to  absorb  them  in  his 
work  and  his  life.  And  I  should  do  it — if  I  married 
him.  I  should  care  so  much — too  much  for  what 
happened  to  him.  .  .  .  Mr.  Ostrander,  if  I  were  a 
man,  I  would  not  stoop  to  ask  such  a  sacrifice  of 
any  woman! " 

"  And  I  stoop  to  ask  for  no  more  than  I  give," 
he  said  with  a  haughty  humility.  u  I  will  take 
from  you  only  what  I  can  yield  to  you, — the  love  of 
a  life.  I  do  not  want  your  work,  or  your  individu- 
ality. I  refuse  to  accept  any  such  sacrifice  from  the 


196  THE  STORY  OP  AVIS. 

woman  I  love.  You  are  perfectly  right.  A  man 
ought  to  be  above  it.  Let  me  be  that  man."  Os- 
trander  uttered  this  daring  sentiment  as  ardently  as  if 
he  had  ever  thought  of  it  before,  and  as  sincerely  as 
if  it  had  been  the  watchword  of  his  life.  He  felt  him- 
self at  that  moment  in  the  radiation  of  a  great  truth 
that  blazed  from  her  ringing  voice  and  her  intrenched 
beauty.  He  seemed  to  himself  to  be  the  discoverer 
of  a  new  type  of  womanhood,  to  which,  as  we  do  in 
the  presence  of  all  ideals,  he  instinctively  brought 
his  own  nature  to  the  rapid  test :  he  would  have 
scorned  himself  if  his  manhood  had  not  rung  respon- 
sive to  it.  He  ventured  solemnly  to  say,  — 

"  Only  let  us  love,  and  live,  and  work  together. 
Your  genius  shall  be  more  tenderly  my  pride  than 
my  little  talents  can  possibly  be  yours.  I  shall  feel 
more  care  for  your  assured  future  than  you  ought 
to  feel  for  my  wrecked  one.  Try  me  if  you  will ; 
trust  me  if  you  can.  I  do  not  say  that  I  am  worthy. 
But  you  shall  make  me  so.  If  I  did  not  believe  you 
could  make  me  so,  before  God,  I  would  go  out  from 
your  presence  to-day,  and  never  seek  it  again." 
He  spoke  in  an  agitation  now,  that  extended  itself, 
like  the  air  they  breathed,  to  her.  She  rose,  and 
walked  across  the  study-floor  two  or  three  times, 
with  something  of  her  father's  attitude,  the  long, 
nervous  step  softened  to  a  sinuous  grace  in  her 
clinging  dress. 

"  I  wish  I  had  a  different  past  and  a  different 
future  to  offer  you,"  pleaded  Ostrander,  throwing 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  197 

one  weak  arm  up  over  his  head  restlessly.  "But 
the  one  has  at  least  been  clean,  I  believe ;  and  the 
other  must  be — what  God  and  yourself  will  it." 

She  stopped  her  rapid  walk,  and  looked  at  him 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor ;  and  in  what 
seemed  a  half-unconscious  tone,  as  if  she  had  not 
been  listening  to  his  last  words,  she  said,  — 

4 '  I  have  wondered  sometimes  if  there  were  such 
a  man  in  the  world.  I  always  knew,"  whispering, 
' '  how  I  should  feel.  I  knew  it  would  be  all  over  with 
me  when  I  found  him."  Then,  still  softly,  — 

"  Oh,  how  pale  you  are  !  All  this  excitement  —  is 
so  wrong  for  you  !  I  should  be  so  glad  to  see  you 
happy  —  to  help  you  to  get  well!  Oh,  I  think  I 
could  make  you  happy!  I  would  try  —  there  is 
nothing  I  would  not  do,  would  not  suffer  "  — 

With  a  swift  motion  she  stirred  towards  him,  saw 
him  reach  his  arms  out  dumbly,  wavered  and  turned, 
then,  — 

"  Oh,  no,  no,  no !  "  she  cried.  "  Help  me  to  say 
no!  Come  another  tune.  I  must  think.  I  must 
take  time  —  because  "  — 

"Because  what?"  he  demanded,  sorely  shaken 
by  the  prolongation  of  this  strain. 

; '  Because  I  care  too  much  for  you  to  make  you 
miserable.  Every  thing  would  be  so  hard  for  you ! 
Don't  think  it  is  that  I  care  so  much  about  myself! 
/  could  bear  it,  —  to  grow  poor  and  sick  and  worn- 
out,  and  never  to  paint,  and  to  have  to  sew  so  much ! 
When  you  look  at  me,  (oh,  you  are  so  pale  !)  I  could 


198  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

bear  it  all.  But  I  can't  forget  how  it  would  be  — 
and  the  coffee  wouldn't  be  right.  And  men  mind 
such  things  —  you  would  mind.  You  would  be  sorry 
we  had  done  it.  It  is  not  right  for  us  to  marry. 
Don't  let  me  do  what  is  not  right !  You  should  see 
—  you  should  be  merciful  to  yourself  and  me." 

She  seemed  to  slip  and  slide  before  his  still  ex- 
tended hands  like  a  wraith,  and  he  heard  the  door 
open  and  close,  and  the  afternoon  sun  bent  pla- 
cidly upon  the  rows  of  books,  upon  the  portrait  of  Sir 
William,  upon  the  decorous  mahogany  sofa,  and  the 
dull  figure  on  the  carpet  where  she  had  stood. 

He  took  his  hat,  and  crawled  away  in  the  bright 
sunshine.  Avis  up  stairs  held  her  hands  upon  her 
ears  as  if  she  were  trying  to  shut  out  the  sound  of 
her  own  words ;  and  the  professor  at  the  Alpha 
Delta  Phi  dinner  sat  discussing  representative  per- 
ception with  that  New- York  clergyman  who  had 
written  so  intelligent  a  review  of  the  Identity  of 
Identity  and  Non-Identity ;  and  aunt  Chloe  at  the 
prayer-meeting  poured  out  her  good  soul  for  the 
benefit  of  the  country. 

He  did  not  seek  to  see  her  after  this,  but  wrote  to 
her  several  tunes,  expressing  more  fully  both  the 
burden  of  his  love  and  the  reason  of  his  hope,  crys- 
tallizing calmly  all  a  lover's  sublime  conviction  of  the 
practicability  of  his  wishes.  He  had  no  answers ; 
but  he  wrote  bravely  on.  Perhaps  a  fortnight  passed 
in  this  way.  All  this  while,  Ostrander  had  said 
nothing  of  his  health. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  199 

One  day  Coy  came  in  and  said,  — 

"  Poor  Mr.  Ostrander !  He  doesn't  seem  to  get  up. 
John  goes  over  there  almost  every  day.  He  doesn't 
walk  out  now,  —  hasn't  for  a  week  ;  and  the  Aliens 
take  him  to  ride.  But  I  hear  his  chum  is  very  good 
to  him,  and  he  won't  go  anywhere  else.  And  John 
says  he  can't  see  why  he  doesn't  gain.  John  is  very 
good  to  him.  And  John  says  "  — 

But  Avis  did  not  seem  to  be  granting  her  usual 
tender  attention  to  what  John  said  ;  and  Coy  changed 
the  subject  —  to  bias  ruffles. 

It  was  when  Ostrander  was  lying  alone  in  the  dusk, 
on  his  college  lounge,  the  next  day,  that  a  little  note 
was  brought  to  him,  the  first  he  had  ever  received 
from  her.  With  shaking  fingers  he  struck  a  light, 
and  read,  in  her  large,  defined  hand,  this  only :  — 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  OSTRANDER, — I  should  like  to  see 
you,  if  you  are  strong  enough  to  drive  to  my  father's 
house.  Do  not  come  till  you  are  quite  able.  I  have 
nothing  to  say  that  cannot  be  said  as  well  at  one  time  as 
another.  Yours  sincerely, 

"  AVIS   DOBELL." 

His  chum  came  in  at  that  moment ;  and  Ostrander, 
who  had  not  ventured  into  the  evening  air  for  weeks, 
fiercely  demanded  a  carriage  and  his  overcoat,  and 
got  them.  He  usually  got  what  he  sought  in  that 
reverberating  tone.  Men  were  almost  as  pliable  as 
women  to  the  quality  of  Philip  Ostrander 's  voice. 

As  luck  would  have  it,  there  was  a  Faculty  meet- 


200  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

ing  in  the  study,  and  a  City  Relief  Society  in  the 
parlors.  He  asked  distinctly  for  Miss  Avis,  and 
was  bidden  into  the  long,  empty  dining-room.  There 
was  faint  firelight  in  the  Franklin  stove ;  and  the 
moon,  which  was  full,  looked  in  over  aunt  Chloe's 
ivies.  There  was  heliotrope  in  the  room  somewhere ; 
but  it  could  not  be  seen.  She  came,  before  the 
lights,  not  knowing  how  it  was,  and  stopped  in  the 
doorway,  uncertain.  He  was  standing  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room.  It  seemed  as  if  he  leaned  against 
a  column  of  straight  moonlight.  His  height  and 
pallor  were  thus  both  emphasized. 

Avis,  looking  in  through  the  darkened  room,  lean- 
ing forward  a  little,  hesitating,  thought  of  the  Har- 
bor Light,  oddly  enough,  and  of  the  birds. 

The  lamps  came  in  while  they  were  standing  so : 
the  servant  went  out  and  closed  the  door.  Avis 
had  on  something  scarlet  over  a  thick  white  dress 
that  blazed  out  with  the  lighting  of  the  room.  She 
spoke  first,  and  she  said  gravely,  — 

"  Mr.  Ostrander,  I  have  decided  "  — 

"  Oh !  do  not  decide  —  yet/ ' 

"  It  is  quite  necessary.  I  have  tried  your  patience 
overmuch.  I  have  decided  ;  and  I  pray  you  pardon 
me  for  the  lateness  of  the  decision,  and  for  all  the 
trouble  I  have  been  to  you,  and  all  the  pain  —  but  — 
I  have  decided  that  I  cannot  resign  my  profession  as 
an  artist." 

He  was  hastening  impetuously  to  remind  her  that 
they  had  both  decided  she  need  resign  nothing,  when 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  201 

he  perceived  a  tender  merriment  that  he  had  never 
seen  before,  dawning  far  within  her  eyes. 

His  voice  and  face  sprang  towards  her ;  but  she 
motioned  him  back. 

"  And  —  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  I  hate  —  with  a 
fervent  hatred  —  to  keep  house." 

"  I  did  not  ask  you  to  be  my  housekeeper !  " 

u  And,"  suddenly  serious,  "I  make  very  sour 
bread." 

"  You  will  bring  me,"  he  said  reverently,  "  the 
bread  of  life." 

He  looked  so  wasted,  standing  trembling  there, 
with  his  hand  upon  the  long  table,  that  his  words 
seemed  less  the  rhapsody  of  love  than  the  cry  of 
famine ;  and  the  reply,  which  in  the  telling  has 
almost  a  touch  of  the  ludicrous,  in  the  solemn  saying 
was  almost  sublime. 

"  Come,"  he  said  feebly,  "I  am  starving. 
Come  !  "  Slowly  at  first,  with  her  head  bent,  as  if 
she  resisted  some  opposing  pressure,  then  swiftly, 
as  if  she  had  been  drawn  by  irresistible  forces,  then 
blindly,  like  the  bird  to  the  light-house,  she  passed 
the  length  of  the  silent  room,  and  put  both  hands, 
the  palms  pressed  together  as  if  they  had  been  man- 
acled, into  his. 


202  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

"Wine  sweeter  than  first  wine 
She  gave  him  drop  by  drop ; 
"Wine  stronger  than  seal  could  sign 
She  poured,  and  did  not  stop." —  H.  H. 

"VTEVER  was  there  such  a  wooing.  So,  with  the 
JL M  simple  assurance  of  that  glorified  time  in  which 
we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  the  originators  of  each 
new  emotion  that  overtakes  us,  Ostrander  thought. 
And,  indeed,  many  a  lover's  sweet  fallacy  has  been 
farther  from  the  truth. 

Had  she  not  been  of  a  tissue  to  which  caprice  was 
as  impossible  as  crime,  he  would  scarcely  have  felt, 
for  a  day's  space,  confident  of  his  new  and  dazzling 
claim.  Her  betrothal  fitted  upon  her  impatiently, 
like  the  first  articles  in  a  treaty  of  capitulation  only 
looking  askance  as  yet  towards  a  dreaded  surrender 
in  which  a  passionately  defended  lost  cause  was  to 
go  down.  He  felt  his  way  painfully  with  her,  care- 
ful not  to  startle  her,  as  if  she  had  been  a  bird 
poised  with  tender,  receding  feet,  and  fluttering  wing, 
uncertain  whether  it  would  nestle  at  his  heart. 

The  abrupt  and  cavalierly  form  of  wooing  with 
which  he  had  at  first,  as  was  inevitable,  shocked  and 
temporarily  estranged  (but  thus  ultimately  strength- 
ened) the  leaning  of  her  feeling  towards  him,  had 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  203 

given  place  to  a  definite  persistence,  to  be  sure,  but 
to  one  so  tender  and  cautious,  that  she  seemed  to  be 
scarcely  more  conscious  of  it  than  of  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  morning. 

For  the  first  few  days  she  received  him  with  a 
distance  which  would  have  disheartened  a  less  per- 
ceptive man.  Even  her  anxiety  for  his  recovery 
seemed  to  have  retired  from  the  foreground  of  her 
thoughts.  Neither  the  future  nor  the  past,  appar- 
ently, occupied  her  imagination  much  more  than 
they  do  that  of  the  caged  creature  who  has  just 
become  percipient  of  the  existence  and  the  nature 
of  bars.  She  sat  by  him  silently,  or  they  talked  of 
matters  of  wide  interest,  or  aunt  Chloe  came  in. 
She  had  steadfastly  refused  so  far  to  acquaint  her 
family  with  the  state  of  the  case  between  them,  say- 
ing decidedly, — 

"I  must  get  a  little  used  to  it  first."  Secretly, 
Ostrander  blessed  the  sturdy  American  sentiment 
which  made  this  possible.  It  seemed  to  him  just 
then  as  much  as  he  could  bear,  that  they  two,  they 
only  out  of  all  the  world,  should  know  that  the 
almost  inconceivable  future  was  possible  to  him, 
which  would  give  him  the  right  to  call  her  his  wife. 
To  share  the  first  blush  of  this  knowledge  with  any 
human  creature  was  like  bruising  the  velvet  on  the 
petal  of  an  iris. 

"Aren't  you  sorry  yet?  "she  asked  one  day, 
when  this  first  mood  had  passed.  u  Don't  you  think 
we  had  better  not  do  this  ?  I  can't  do  any  of  the 
tilings  men  expect." 


204  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Oh ! "  he  cried, "  you  shall  not  be  what  other  men 
expect.  I  don't  want  you  like  other  men's  wives. 
You  Lorelei !  sphinx !  you  Cassandra,  you !  rebel- 
lious —  beautiful ' '  — 

44  But  they  thought  Cassandra  was  mad,"  inter- 
rupted Avis.  "  Except "  — 

"Well?" 

"  The  king  loved  her,"  said  Avis  softly. 

It  was  perhaps  a  week  since  he  had  received  her 
promise,  when  one  evening,  as  they  were  alone  to- 
gether, he  went  resolutely  yet  gently  over  to  the 
window  where  she  stood  behind  the  heavy  curtains, 
restlessly  shifting  aunt  Chloe's  flowers  about  to  no 
very  definite  end,  that  he  could  see,  and  said,  — 

"Avis?" 

He  had  not  called  her  so  before.  She  started  with 
leaping  eyes,  moved  her  lips  as  if  she  would  have 
spoken ;  said  nothing. 

"Avis,"  he  repeated,  "do  you  know  that  we 
have  been  engaged  a  week  —  a  whole  week  ?  ' ' 

When  she  looked  up,  he  was  smiling  quietly,  and 
he  spoke  in  that  unimpassioned,  matter-of-course 
tone  which  most  quickly  disarms  the  dismay  of  such 
a  woman  ;  as  if  that  which  he  sought  were  as  natural 
as  the  drawing  of  the  breath,  and  in  no  sense  more 
suited  to  create  an  exciting  scene  ;  or  as  if  he  dealt, 
indeed,  with  a  thought  too  lofty  and  too  grave  to  be 
reduced  to  the  level  of  an  excitement. 

' '  A  whole  week,  my  darling.  Ah,  hush !  Can 
you  not  bear  so  much  as  that?  And  you  have  not 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  205 

yet  given  me  one  kiss.  Don't  you  think  it  is  a  little 
hard  on  a  poor  wreck  of  a  wounded  soldier?  " 

"  I  don't  mean  to  be  hard/'  she  said,  slowly  re- 
ceding from  him  with  unconscious  steps  that  twisted 
in  her  long  dress. 

"But  you  are  —  very  hard.  It  doesn't  seem  to 
me  worth  while  exactly.  Why  should  you  mind  so 
much,  if  you  really  love  me?  " 

"I  love  you!"  she  murmured,  standing  quite 
still. 

11  Ah,  how  much?'  Dear,  how  much?  " 

"Do  you  think  I  can  —  say,  what  I  have  not 
dared  —  yet  —  to ' '  —  Her  voice  sunk. 

"  All  the  same,"  said  Ostrander,  shaking  his  head, 
obstinate  with  joy,  "I'm  tired  of  living  on  faith. 
I  don't  feel  sure  of  you." 

She  began  to  stir  again,  still  receding,  her  outline 
growing  fainter  in  the  shadowed  corner  of  the  room. 
He  advanced  as  slowly,  but  with  a  reverent  attend- 
ance on  her  wish,  towards  her. 

"  You  don't  understand !  "  she  cried.  "  No  man 
could.  This  is  all  so  new,  so  strange,  so  terrible,  to 
me.  You  don't  remember  how  it  is.  I  never  ex- 
pected to  be  in  such  a  position  as  this :  in  all  my 
life  I've  never  thought  I  could  be !  If  I  am  more 
foolish  than  other  women,  that  is  why.  I  don't  mean 
to  be  foolish.  Be  patient  with  me !  I  love  you !  " 

"  If  I  had  not  been  patient "  — he  began  impul- 
sively, but  checked  himself. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  do,  how  to  act,  how  to 


206  THft  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

adjust  myself  to  what  has  happened,"  she  said  in 
an  entreating,  childlike  way,  as  if  she  sought  his 
tolerance  for  some  radical  fault  of  hers.  He  was 
intoxicated  by  this  peculiarly  beautiful  lowh'ness  into 
which  her  unstooping  spirit  now  and  then  surged 
over,  and  spent  itself,  like  the  foam  upon  the  crest 
of  a  wave. 

"  Only  let  me  teach  you! "  he  urged,  drawing, 
unforbidden,  nearer  her.  "  Only  say  that  you  will 
try  to  learn!  " 

He  thought  for  a  moment  that  she  would  have  fled ; 
her  hands  held  her  very  dress  away ;  she  seemed 
to  draw  even  her  breath  back  from  him.  There  was 
a  solemn  deprecation,  almost  of  the  character  of  a 
rebuke,  upon  her  face.  But  she  did  not  deny  him. 
A  sense  of  sacramental  awe,  such  as  he  would  not 
have  believed  it  possible  for  him  to  be  so  penetrated 
with  at  such  a  moment, — penetrated  almost  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  sense  of  joy,  — possessed  him  ;  and 
his  own  hand  with  which  he  touched  her  seemed  to 
the  young  man  to  alter,  and  become  transfigured, 
like  the  hand  of  a  spirit  stretched  to  meet  him  across 
the  kneeling  room. 

Then,  indeed,  he  walked  about  with  resplendent 
eyes.  He  trod  on  bounding  air.  Then,  at  last,  he 
felt  that  he  should  win  her.  He  was  no  longer 
afraid  of  any  mood,  or  re-action,  or  recoil  of  hers. 
She  might  withdraw  herself  as  she  would,  or  grieve 
over  her  sweet,  lost  liberty  as  she  must:  she  was 
his. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  207 

All  our  pleasure  is  said  to  be  nothing  more  than 
the  consciousness  of  some  one  or  other  of  our  per- 
fections. Ostrander  wore  the  self-gratified  smile  of 
successful  love.  But  one's  personal  share  of  acidity 
must  be  flavored  with  gall,  if  one  would  be  untender 
with  this  form  of  complacency. 

It  was  the  next  day  after  the  little  scene  just  re- 
lated, that  she  went  to  aunt  Chloe.  She  had  pre- 
ferred to  go,  and  to  go  alone.  Aunt  Chloe  heard 
her  in  silence,  and  rounded  off  her  stocking  (for  the 
little  feet  of  the  State  orphans,  this  time) ,  before  she 
said,  — 

"  My  dear,  he's  consumptive!  However,"  after 
a  long  pause,  in  which  she'  knitted  and  winked  with 
violent  rhythmic  harmony,  ' '  your  father  will  be 
pleased.  And  in  these  days  it  isn't  every  talented 
young  man  who  takes  a  decided  stand.  Mr.  Ostran- 
der doesn't  think  he's  too  smart  to  believe  the 
Bible,  so  far.  Of  course  you  wouldn't  marry  any 
but  a  religious  man.  And  he  will  go  into  the  pro- 
fessorship as  soon  as  he  recovers.  I  don't  see,  on 
the  whole,  what  could  be  better.  You  might  take 
that  house  of  the  Perkinses  on  High  Street.  But  I 
confess,  I  thought  you'd  tug  away  at  that  painting 
a  while  longer." 

"  I  do  not  intend  this  to  make  any  difference  with 
my  painting,"  said  Avis  quickly:  "my  marriage, 
if  I  many,  is  not  to  interfere  with  my  work.  Mr. 
Ostrander  does  not  wish  it." 

Aunt  Chloe  laid  down  the  little   stocking,  and 


208  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

regarded  her  niece  with  that  superior  matronly 
smile,  under  which,  above  all  earthly  afflictions,  a 
young  woman  feels  herself  a  helpless  rebel.  But  all 
aunt  Chloe's  reply  was  a  long,  low,  significant, 

"H-u-m-ph!" 

"  Certainly  not,"  repeated  Avis  very  distinctly. 
"  I  would  not  marry,  if  I  must  give  up  my  profes- 
sion. That  is  understood." 

"  When  a  —  woman  becomes  —  a  wife,"  said  aunt 
Chloe,  taking  to  the  little  stocking  again  with  her 
generous,  dogmatic  hands,  "  her  husband's  interests 
in  life  are  enough  for  her.  When  you  are  once 
married,  you  will  no  longer  feel  any  of  this  youthful 
irritation  against  the  things  that  other  women  do. 
Women."  added  aunt  Chloe  solemnly,  "are  not 
men.  God  made  us." 

"Well,  I,"  said  Avis,  laughing,  "am  like  the 
boy  in  the  Sunday  school,  whom  God  didn't  make. 
We'll  play  that  somebody  else  made  me,  auntie.  — 
Aunt  Chloe," — she  suddenly  changed  her  tone  to 
one  of  grave  and  searching  appeal,  —  "  tell  me  now, 

—  tell  me  the  holy  truth  (for  I  need  all  the  truth  I 
can  get  just  now,  auntie) ,  did  you  never  in  all  your 
life  want  to  be  any  thing  else  but  my  uncle's  wife? 
Is  there  nothing  in  all  the  world  that  you,  —  a  wo- 
man of  overflowing  energy  and  individuality,  and 
organizing  power,  —  able  to  carry  a  Christian  com- 
mission or  a  national  commissary  on  your  shoulders, 

—  is  there  nothing  that  you  ever  wanted  to  be?  " 
The  little   stocking  gently  sank  to  aunt  Chloe's 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

broad  knee,  and  there  was  a  pause,  in  which  her  soft, 
brown,  benevolent  eyes  filled  with  a  slow  light.  In 
the  window-sill  the  September  sun  fell  upon  her 
geraniums.  They  turned  their  burning  faces  to  her 
solemnly,  like  visions  which  said,  "We  will  never 
tell."  Aunt  Chloe  arose,  went  over  and  stroked 
them,  then  came  back. 

4 'My  dear  Avis,"  she  said  in  a  subdued  voice, 
"  I  suppose  all  of  us  have  times  of  thinking  strange 
thoughts,  and  wishing  impossible  things.  I  have 
thought  sometimes  —  if  I  could  begin  life  over,  and 
choose  for  my  own  selfish  pleasure,  that  I  would  like 
to  give  myself  to  the  culture  and  study  of  plants.  I 
should  be  —  a  florist,  perhaps,  my  dear ;  or  a  botan- 
ist." 

Aunt  Chloe  uttered  these  words  under  her  breath, 
as  she  might  have  some  beautiful  heresy,  then  took 
to  her  knitting  with  a  fierce  repentance ;  and  that 
one  particular  orphan  had  a  pair  of  stone-china  col- 
ored stockings  before  tea-time.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  follow  the  precise  chain  of  mental  influences  which 
led  aunt  Chloe  to  put  in  Turkey-red  toes. 

The  interview  between  Avis  and  her  father  was, 
like  ah1  deeply-fraught  scenes  between  them,  a  brief 
one.  She  went  in,  and,  sliding  away  his  books,  knelt 
beside  him,  and,  without  looking  upwards,  said,  — 

"  Father,  I  have  promised  to  marry  Mr.  Ostrander. 
I  never  meant  to  marry." 

The  professor  pushed  back  his  spectacles,  then 
his  lexicon,  then  his  daughter;  held  her  at  arm's 
length  for  a  moment. 


210  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"The  conceivable,"  he  murmured,  "lies  always 
between  two  inconceivable  extremes.  Such  we  find 
in  the  law  of  the  conditioned."  Then  gently,  — 

"  And  so  my  little  girl  —  has  come  to  —  that!  I 
can  hardly  understand.  It  seems  such  a  short  time 
since  you  were  playing  about ;  and  your  mother  "  — 

The  professor  laid  his  nervous,  scholarly  hand  upon 
his  daughter's  head ;  she  felt  it  suddenly  tremble. 
But  he  collected  himself,  and  said,  — 

"  I  have  a  high  regard  for  Mr.  Ostrander.  I 
think  your  mother  would  have  liked  him  —  but  it 
was  not  quite  easy  to  prophesy  whom  your  mother 
would  like.  She  was  a  woman  of  rare  penetration 
into  human  character.  I  wish  she  were  here  — just 
now.  But  there,  my  child,  is  the  lecture-bell.  I 
have  mislaid  the  fifth  lecture  on  the  Cartesian  dictum, 
somewhere,  Avis  :  I  think  your  aunt  must  have  been 
dusting  to-day.  Look  under  those  three  volumes  of 
Dugald  Stewart.  Try  Reid  on  Aristotle.  No,  that 
is  the  refutation  of  Ilobbes.  Have  you  shaken  the 
Duality  of  Consciousness  thoroughly?  " 

He  dropped  his  hand  once  more  upon  his  daugh- 
ter's head  in  passing  out,  but  only  said,  — 

"  Et  in  Acadia  ego.  How  like  your  mother  you 
are  looking  in  these  days,  my  dear !  " 

He  strode  away  to  lecture  at  a  more  jagged  pace 
than  usual.  Across  the  Cartesian  dictum,  which  he 
clutched  with  j  everent  tenacity  under  one  gaunt  el- 
bow, the  Duality  of  Consciousness  (whatever  was  to 
be  said  of  the  argument)  carried  every  thing  before  it 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  211 

that  afternoon.  If  hands  had  touched  him,  clinging 
by  the  sensitive  finger-tips  to  his  lonely  old  arm  —  but 
the  bloodless  September  air  was  wan  and  empty. 
If  a  voice  had  spoken — but  there  was  only  a  sulky 
wind  to  say,  — 

"  Did  you  want  any  thing.  Professor*}  " 

And  clearly  only  the  Duality  of  Consciousness  could 
reply,  with  the  leaping  pulse  of  eternal  youth,  — 

"  Only  to  see  if  you  look  well  and  happy,  my  dear;" 
while  the  boys  upon  the  college-steps  were  shouting 
within  his  mild,  objective  ears,  — 

"  Here's  the  old  fellow  himself!  " 

That  afternoon,  too,  Avis  sent  a  little  note  to 
Coy.  It  ran  thus  :  — 

"  DEAR  COY,  —  I  have  said,  that,  sometime  or  other, 
I  will  marry  Mr.  Ostrander.  But,  Coy,  if  you  talk  to 
me  about  this  as  most  women  do  about  such  things,  I'll 
break  the  engagement.  Yours, 

"  Avis/ 

And  Coy  answered,  — 

"  DEAR  Avis,  —  You'll  streak  his  cake  with  saleratus. 
His  biscuit  will  taste  of  yeast.  His  wristbands  will  be 
wrinkled.  But  you  know,  if  I  were  a  man,  Avis,  I'd  live 
on  johnny-cake  and  paper  cuffs  to  get  you.  You'd  better 
be  married  Christmas,  when  we  are.  Yours, 

"  COY.' 

And  now  the  marvellous  medicine  of  joy  began 
its  subtle  work ;  and  fast,  with  the  glamour  of  the 
autumn  days,  the  wounded  man  waxed  strong. 
Avis,  looking  up  sometimes  with  timid,  astonished 


212  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

eyes,  trembled  to  see  the  work  that  love  had  wrought 
upon  him.  She  was  frightened  that  she  could  make 
him  so  happy.  Perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  her 
young,  untroubled  story,  she  had  a  glimpse  into 
that  mysterious  truth  which  no  story  is  long  enough 
or  sad  enough  to  penetrate,  — that  joy  is  life,  as  misery 
is  death,  as  the  sun  is  organic  warmth,  or  the  night 
inherent  blackness.  There  may  be  deeper  signifi- 
cance than  we  always  fancy  in  the  sacred  figures 
which  familiarize  our  lips  with  the  everlasting  life  of 
heaven  and  the  everlasting  death  of  hell. 

In  brief,  Ostrander,  being  in  heaven,  proceeded 
to  immediate,  and  let  us  never  say,  amazing  recovery. 
He  received,  and  before  November  was  able  to 
accept,  the  renewed  overtures  from  the  university. 
He  became  the  junior  colleague  of  the  old  geological 
professor,  whose  death  or  resignation  (and  the 
-Board  of  Trustees  generously  allowed  him  his 
choice  of  these  alternatives),  undoubtedly  to  take 
place  in  a  few  years'  time,  would  slip  the  young  man 
into  an  assured  and  commanding  future. 

"  I  can  hardly  understand,"  said  Avis :  "  a  month 
ago  you  were  a  failing  man.  We  thought  —  I 
thought,  Philip,  you  would  die." 

She  had  but  just  learned,  slowly  and  hardly,  to 
make  music  of  his  name  for  him  upon  her  bewildered 
lips.  The  "little  language"  in  which  lovers  are 
usually  profuse ,  he  heard  but  scantily.  An  exquisite 
reticence  hung  over  her,  which  he  would  not,  if  he 
could,  have  shaken.  Her  expressions  of  endear- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  213 

ment,  like  her  caresses,  were  rare,  rapturous,  and 
rich.  His  hungry  mood  waited  on  them :  they  sur- 
prised his  imagination  like  the  discovery  of  a  new 
art,  which  all  time  would  not  be  long  enough  for  him 
to  make  his  own. 

"  The  man  who  has  won  you"  he  would  answer, 
with  that  unconsciousness  of  possible  exaggeration 
which  makes  the  very  folly  of  young  love  sublime, 
—  "  such  a  man  could  not  die." 

Then,  indeed,  she  turned  her  strong  head  towards 
him,  in  that  way  of  hers,  with  a  kind  of  lofty  won- 
der at  the  new  conditions  in  which  she  found  herself, 
making  it  possible  for  her  to  sit  and  hear  a  radically 
feeble  assertion  without  any  intellectual  revolt. 
Upon  this  grave  wonder  a  gradual  tolerance  grew ; 
then,  perhaps,  if  she  were  in  her  gentler  temper,  she 
melted  into  some  sign  of  tenderness,  which  overtook 
him  like  a  beautiful  stratagem  of  her  nature,  yet 
which  expended  itself  as  unconsciously  as  the  smile 
of  a  child,  or  the  nodding  of  an  anemone. 

Or  perhaps  she  sat  wrapped  in  some  maiden  rev- 
ery  of  silence,  or  fear,  or  retreat,  which  he  found  it 
impossible  to  understand  or  to  share  with  her :  he 
sat  shut  out,  as  if  he  had  tried  to  lift  the  veil  of 
Isis,  or  to  woo  the  Sphinx  of  the  desert  to  open  her 
stone  lips. 

One  day  he  asked  her  to  play  to  him,  for  he  had 
never  heard  her.  She  told  him,  what  was  true 
enough,  that  her  execution,  which  was  always  poor, 
had  not  been  improved  by  six  years  of  exclusive  art- 


214  TOE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

study.  But  she  went  to  her  mother's  old  piano,  and 
played  for  half  an  hour,  —  fragments  from  the  An- 
dante of  Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony,  a  serenade 
of  Schubert's,  the  Adelaide,  some  Scotch  melodies, 
and  one  or  two  improvisations,  unscientific,  power- 
ful, and  magnetic. 

Ostrander  threw  himself  upon  the  sofa,  and  lis- 
tened, with  his  hand  above  his  eyes,  as  if  he  were 
shutting  out  a  light. 

"  Oh,"  he  said  under  his  breath  when  she  had  fin- 
ished, "  what  a  touch !" 

Avis  heard  this  gratefully.  Ostrander's  taste  for 
music  was  highly  cultivated :  she  would  have  felt  it 
to  be  an  unkind  insincerity  if  he  had  said  she  played 
well.  She  was  moved  by  the  delicate  and  honest 
fervor  of  his  tribute  ;  as  if  he  —  he  first  and  only  in 
the  world  —  had  recognized  some  dumb  side  to  her 
nature.  She  cherished  the  memory  of  this  recogni- 
tion with  a  peculiarly  coy  happiness,  which  she  had 
afterwards  occasion  to  remember. 

She  long  remembered  too,  and  he  —  what  lovers 
would  soon  forget  ?  —  their  first  shared  experience 
of  the  rapture  of  the  dying  year.  It  seemed  to 
her  that  the  heart  of  spring  could  never  beat  to  stir 
her  own  like  this  October  pulse. 

What  was  the  vigor  of  a  violet  ?  the  fire  of  a  snow- 
drop ?  What  did  the  young  grass  know  of  hardly- 
yielded  and  sternly-encroaching  love  ?  One  red  leaf 
understood  her  better  than  they  all.  They  walked 
one  day  far  out  of  the  town,  into  a  forest  of  young 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  215 

oaks,  and  stood  clinging  together,  awed  by  the  sea 
of  subdued  color  that  broke  against  their  feet,  and 
down  the  knoll,  to  the  crown  of  which  they  had 
climbed.  In  the  violet  distance  the  maples  splashed 
into  shallow  tints,  bold  vermilion  and  transparent 
yellow,  like  emotions  quickly  stung  and  healed. 
But  the  infant  oaks,  mere  shrubs  yet,  gathered 
themselves  in  deep  shades,  blood  to  the  heart's  core. 
All  the  gales  of  winter  could  not  stir  their  leaves. 
They  would  cling  like  the  unclasped  fingers  that 
death  had  overtaken ;  they  appealed  to  the  imagina- 
tion like  some  superb  constancy  towering  above  all 
lesser  story,  as  strength  must,  perforce,  tower  over 
weakness,  and  unity  above  disintegration. 

Avis,  standing  with  her  straw  hat  thrust  hanging 
down  her  shoulders,  and  her  head  bent  as  if  she 
listened,  turned  suddenly,  with  an  appealing  gesture, 
towards  Ostrander,  and  said,  — 

"  I  never  loved  another  man.  What  should  I  do 
if  you  had  loved  another  woman?  " 

Instantly,  for  her  only  answer,  she  was  swept  to 
his  heart,  with  an  impulse  more  daring  and  authori- 
tative than  she  had  ever  witnessed  in  him,  as  if 
some  impalpable  power  had  been  arrayed  to  snatch 
her  from  him,  or  as  if  her  mad  supposition  were  be- 
neath the  respect  of  articulate  reply. 

The  young  oaks  throbbed  about  them  dizzily  for 
a  moment,  before,  moved  by  his  continued  silence, 
she  drew  her  face  back,  that  she  might  look  up  into 
his.  She  was  a  little  surprised  to  find,  for  the  sec- 


216  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS- 

ond  time,  that  look  which  she  had  marked  upon  the 
June  morning  by  the  shore.  He  seemed  to  have  be- 
come, for  the  moment,  perfectly  blind,  and  to  regard 
her  with  the  blank,  narrow  gaze  of  a  person  whose 
brain  was  stealthily  diseased.  Then  swiftly  it  darted 
as  before,  and  his  deep  eyes  burnt  it  out  before  he 
said,  — 

"Avis,  never  say  that  again!  It  frightens  the 
man  —  who  has  won  the  right  to  hold  you  here — to 
remember  that  it  might  or  could,  but  for  God's 
mercy,  have  been  some  other  woman.  And  you — 
you  would  have  still  been  in  the  world, — in  the 
same  world  with  him  !  " 

Avis  said  nothing.  A  man,  after  all,  was  so  differ- 
ent !  She,  for  instance,  had  never  thought  that  it 
might  or  could  have  been  some  other  who  should 
have  so  much  as  touched  her  hand.  One  does  not 
waste  the  fancy  upon  the"  incredible.  It  had  not 
occurred  to  her  as  a  special  interposition  of  Provi- 
dence, that  she  should  love  Philip  Ostrander.  What 
man  cometh  after  the  king?  Her  great  love  was 
simply  the  condition  of  existence,  like  the  action  of 
her  heart.  She  had  never  felt  called  upon  to  thank 
God  for  that. 

Just  before  his  assumption  of  his  new  duties  in 
the  college,  Ostrander  left  for  a  few  days'  visit  in 
New  Hampshire.  He  expressed  much  regret,  in  which 
Avis,  with  a  tenderness  which  she  shrank  from  ex- 
pressing, fully  shared,  that  he  had  been  obliged  to 
defer  seeing  his  mother  for  so  long.  She  felt  sorry 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  217 

that  this  had  been,  and  must  have  been  so.  Her 
heart  yearned  towards  that  solitary  old  mother — • 
Philip's  mother.  She  did  not  care  how  rustic,  or 
old,  or  ignorant  she  might  be.  ("  My  poor  mother 
is  not  exactly  a  cultivated  woman,"  Ostrander  had 
said  once  in  his  tender  way.)  Her  own  motherless 
youth  reached  with  a  peculiar  longing  after  this  un- 
known woman  who  had  borne  the  man  she  loved. 
She  wondered  sometimes  if  the  old  lady  would  not 
find  it  less  lonely  to  live  in  Harmouth.  But  of 
course  her  son  would  be  the  best  to  know,  and 
should  be  the  first  to  speak  of  that.  She  contented 
herself  with  sending  a  timid  but  tender  little  message 
when  Ostrander  went,  in  response  to  the  cramped, 
old-fashioned  postscript  —  her  only  welcome  from  his 
only  living  kin  —  in  which  Mrs.  Ostrander  had  once 
sent  "  her  kind  respects  to  the  young  lady  of  whom 
her  son  had  written  her." 

When  he  was  gone,  for  the  first  tune  since  the 
injury  to  her  hand,  she  resumed  with  stiff,  strange 
fingers,  her  work  in  the  studio.  It  was  not  easy  to 
estimate,  perhaps,  the  precise  effect  which  that  dis- 
abled hand  had  borne  upon  her  lot.  Avis  found  her- 
self wondering,  with  a  kind  of  terror,  if  she  should 
ever  have  promised  to  be  Philip  Ostrander 's  wife, 
if  she  had  been  through  those  idle,  enthralling  days 
doggedly  at  work. 

A  stiffness  and  strangeness  deeper  than  a  bruised 
muscle  could  strike,  came  upon  her  when  she  closed 
the  door  of  the  long-deserted  place,  and,  striking  a 


218  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

fire  in  her  little  grate,  sat  down  to  warm  her  hands. 
The  autumn  sun  stepped  in,  and  stood  cool  and  calm 
against  the  wall,  like  the  friend  who  never  forgets, 
or  suffers  us  to  forget,  the  resolve  or  the  aspiration 
which  we  once  expressed.  The  dust  had  collected 
upon  her  sketches;  the  boughs  of  the  apple-tree 
were  bare  ;  upon  the  easel  the  sphinx  hung,  covered 
and  dumb. 

Avis  looked  about  her  with  a  singularly  self- 
defensive  feeling,  as  if  she  were  summoned  by  some 
invisible  tribunal  to  answer  for  an  impalpable  offence. 
A  radical  confusion,  such  as  her  young  life  had  never 
known  before,  obscured  her  thoughts.  She  had 
something  of  the  self-recoil  which  a  man  has  in 
turning  to  his  books  or  his  business  after  a  night's 
dissipation. 

She  went  up  and  uncovered  her  sketch.  The  criti- 
cal, cool  sunlight  fell  upon  it.  The  woman  and  the 
sphinx  looked  at  one  another.  Avis  glanced  at  the 
ring  that  fettered  her  finger.  Her  whole  figure 
straightened  and  heightened  :  she  lifted  her  head,  and 
out  of  her  deepening  eye  there  sprang  that  magnifi- 
cent light  which  so  allured  and  commanded  Philip 
Ostrander. 

4 '  What  have  I  done  ? ' '  she  cried.  "  Oh !  what  have 
I  done?" 

With  an  impulse  which  only  a  woman  will  quite 
respect,  standing  alone  there  in  the  silent  witness  of 
the  little  room,  she  tore  off  her  betrothal  ring. 

Then  with  one  of  her  rare  sobs,  sudden  and  sharp 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  219 

as  an  articulate  cry,  she  flung  her  arms  about  the  in- 
sensate canvas,  and  laid  her  cheek,  as  if  it  had  been 
the  touch  of  one  woman  upon  another,  against  the 
cold  cheek  of  the  sphinx ;  and  solemnly,  as  if  she 
sought  to  atone  to  a  goddess  for  some  broken  fealty  > 
she  whispered,  — 
"I  will  be  true." 

When  Ostrander  returned,  he  found  her  nervously 
at  work.  A  marked  unrest  enveloped  her.  But  she 
stood  quite  still,  when,  pushing  open  the  studio-door 
eagerly,  he  met  her  with  the  accumulated  fervors  of  a 
lover  after  a  first  separation.  A  chill  crept  over  him 
even  while  he  touched  her  —  beautiful,  reluctant, 
nrysterious  —  this  strong,  sweet  woman,  wooed,  but 
not  yet  won. 

"Are  you  not  glad,"  he  pleaded,  "to  see  me 
back?" 

"  I  did  not  think  I  should  be  so  glad." 

' '  And  j'ou  missed  me  —  a  little  ? ' ' 

"  I  had  no  idea,"  complainingly,  "  that  I  should 
miss  you  so  much.  I  can't  understand  it.  I  ought 
not  to  have  minded.  I  have  been  at  work."  She 
spoke  with  protesting  significance,  glancing  at  her 
hand,  which  he  held  —  palette,  brushes,  and  all — fast 
prisoner.  He  followed  her  glance,  and  changed  color 
swiftly  before  he  said,  — 

"  Avis,  where  is  your  ring?  " 

"  I  took  it  off.     It  made  me  uncomfortable." 

"Made  you  uncomfortable  —  my  ring  —  our  en- 
gagement-ring? " 


220  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Ostrander  released  her  hands,  and  stood  looking 
at  her  with  a  perplexity  which  struck,  as  indeed  it 
seemed  to,  the  very  core  of  his  imagination. 

"I  do  not  understand  this  at  all,"  he  said  with 
some  displeasure.  "  Where  is  the  ring?  " 

"  On  the  shelf,  behind  the  Lake  of  Como,  at  the 
left  of  father's  portrait,  on  the  right  of  the  char- 
coal newsboy,"  replied  Avis,  laughing.  Ostrander 
brought  the  ring,  and  stood  with  it  balanced  between 
his  thumb  and  forefinger,  looking  from  her  to  it, 
thoroughly  uncertain  what  to  do  or  say. 

Turning  with  one  of  her  sudden,  supple  motions, 
she  saw  how  deeply  she  had  pained  him.  She  put 
down  her  brushes,  and  held  out  her  firm  finger  at 
once. 

"  Shall  I  put  it  on  again?  "  he  hesitated. 

"  If  you  think  I  deserve  it,"  she  gently  said. 

He  put  it  on ;  and  they  talked  no  more  about  it. 
Ostrander  was  thoroughly  uneasy.  He  ventured  for 
the  first  time,  that  morning,  to  speak  quite  distinctly 
of  their  future ;  said  that  he  was  going  with  her 
father,  when  his  inauguration  was  well  over,  to  see 
the  available  houses  in  Harmouth  ;  spoke  of  his  im- 
proving health,  and  of  his  desire  to  be  quietly  set- 
tled ;  but  more  especially  of  his  wish  to  see  her  at 
work  more  to  the  purpose  than  she  could  be,  as 
things  were  at  present,  than  she  could  indeed,  he 
feared,  well  be  until  after  their  marriage. 

Avis,  while  he  spoke,  painted  busily.  Still  paint- 
ing, and  without  looking  round,  she  said  below  her 
breath,  — 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  221 

"  Philip,  don't  want  me  to  marry  you  yet !  " 

But,  when  he  left  her,  she  crept  up  to  him,  timid 
as  a  hare,  and  besought  him  to  be  patient  with  her  ; 
for  she  was  sorely  tried  in  ways  she  said,  that  she 
knew  she  could  not  expect  him  to  understand.  He 
would  have  waited  half  a  lifetime  for  the  tone  and 
the  touch  with  which  she  said  those  words. 

After  this  she  painted  with  great  steadiness.  Os- 
trander  spent  most  of  his  spare  hours  in  the  studio. 
Aunt  Chloe  had  an  easy-chair  wheeled  out  for  him, 
and  set  beside  the  little  grate. 

"  Why  not  leave  that  picture,"  he  asked  one  day, 
as  he  stood  silently  watching  it,  u  until  by  and  by  ?  " 

' '  Why  do  you  want  me  to  do  that  ?  ' ' 

"  I  think  you  would  make  a  greater  picture  of  it 
after  we  are  married,"  he  answered,  disregarding 
her  disturbed  expression.  "  You  will  have  more  lei- 
sure, more  calm.  It  is  going  to  be  a  great  work, 
Avis.  I  wish  to  be  as  proud  of  it  as  possible.  I 
wish  it  to  be  grand  and  full,  without  deficiency. 
I  want  the  world  to  know  you  by  it,  in  some  sense, 
—  in  its  sense,  —  for  what  you  are." 

She  was  touched  by  his  generous  interest  in  her 
work  and  fame.  She  thought  how  true  was  that 
wise  man's  word  who  said,  that  a  friend  is  he  who 
makes  us  do  what  we  can :  she  pitied  with  the  calm 
compassion  of  joy  that  woman,  wherever  she  might 
be  on  the  earth,  who  would  not  find  in  this  beautiful 
sense  a  friend  in  the  man  whose  wife  she  was  to  be. 
Down  through  the  years  she  suddenly  saw  herself 


222  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

transfigured  by  happiness.  She  saw  her  whole  na- 
ture deepening,  its  lightest  grace  or  deepest  gift 
illuminated,  herself  idealized,  by  love.  This  man  — 
so  tender,  and  so  noble  above  his  fellows,  so  true 
that  he  could  be  proud  of  the  woman  he  loved,  so 
great  that  he  could  make  himself  small  beside  her, 
so  anxious  rather  for  her  success  in  doing  the  thing 
God  had  made  her  to  do  than  for  his  own,  so  simply 
and  superbly  recognizant  of  the  truth  that  this  thing 
was  not  done  when  she  had  become  his  wife,  and  or- 
dered his  house,  — this  man  brought  her,  she  thought, 
that  transcendent  experience  which  is  so  often  given 
to  a  man,  but  alas  !  so  unknown  to  women,  in  which 
the  sternest  aspiration  is  strengthened  by  the  sweetest 
joy ;  in  which  love  shall  be  found  more  a  stimulus 
to  than  a  sacrifice  of  the  higher  elements  of  the 
nature. 

Hand  in  hand  with  this  man  whose  generous  hu- 
mility had  exalted  him — as  what  else  could? — to  the 
kingship  of  her,  she  should  climb  to  see  "how  life 
looked  behind  the  mountains." 

She  longed  to  make  herself  worthy  of  so  royal  a 
love.  She  began  to  be  glad  with  a  proud  pleasure 
that  it  was  in  the  nature  of  things  that  she  should 
sacrifice  more  for  Philip  than  he  for  her.  It  seemed 
that,  by  slow  and  kind  degrees,  a  reposeful  spirit 
crept  upon  her.  The  inevitable  conflict  between  her 
art  and  her  love,  which  had  diseased  her  happiest 
hours,  shrivelled  from  an  organic  to  a  functional 
thing.  She  began  to  consider  it  now  without  alarm. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  223 

She  began  to  understand  how  natural  is  joy.  Her 
sequestered  tenderness  peered  out  more  frequently. 
She  became  a  radiant  creature. 

Ostrander  watched  her  in  a  kind  of  ethereal  trance, 
which,  for  a  long  time,  he  guarded  from  the  disturb- 
ance of  his  own  more  impatient  moods  as  jealously 
as  he  guarded  herself  from  them.  He  felt  it  a 
barbarism  now  to  mar  the  unforecasting  nature  of 
her  sweet  impulse,  as  it  would  be  to  hasten  mechani- 
cally the  budding  of  a  flower.  He  felt  that  he  was 
living  that  which  few  men  ever  live  at  all,  and  no 
man  ever  lives  but  once.  He  held  the  cup  of  his 
happiness  to  a  delicate  and  slowly-tasting  lip. 

But  the  autumn  met  its  blazing  death,  and  the 
calmer  colors  of  the  winter  set  in. 

The  tenser  nerve  and  the  clearer  brain  kept  time 
to  the  strong  step  that  crushed  the  flakes  of  first- 
fallen  snow.  Now,  on  nights  when  one's  solitary 
feet  rang  upon  the  walks  of  the  little  town,  shadows 
flitted  on  drawn  curtains,  and  lights  beamed  out 
from  the  hearts  of  deeply- colored  rooms.  All  the 
sacraments  and  sacrifices  that  go  to  make  up  human 
homes,  began  to  gather  upon  them  the  vigorous 
solemnity  of  the  winter. 

On  Christmas  Coy  was  married  ;  and  the  two  young 
people  began,  with  the  touching  confidence  of  the 
young  and  the  very  happy,  the  sacred  work  which 
we  are  wont  to  call  "  saving  souls."  The  phrase  is 
well-rasped,  not  to  say  worn,  but  indestructible  as 
an  atom,  and  poetic  as  a  fossil. 


224  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

It  was  not  long  after  this,  that  aunt  Chloe  began 
in  a  vague  and  abstract  manner  to  drop  a  variety  of 
remarks  upon  the  family  ear,  which  Avis  failed  to 
find  interesting,  but  did  think  singularly  inconse- 
quent. 

4 'What  is  it,"  she  said  to  Coy  one  day,  sitting  in 
the  cheerful  parsonage-parlor,  "  that  has  happened 
lately  in  the  cotton-market?  Aunt  Chloe  keeps 
telling  me  how  cheap  unbleached  cotton  is.  I  think 
it  is  twenty-five  cents,  —  or  really,  perhaps  it  was 
five.  Is  that  a  fact  so  vital  to  the  interests  of  the 
country,  that  I  ought  to  care  about  it?  " 

"  My  dear  child,"  cried  Mrs.  Rose  with  her  most 
matronly  smile,  "  it  is  the  servants'  sheets  !  " 

"  Servants'— sheets?" 

"Why,  yes.  O  Avis  —  Avis  Dobell !  Who  but 
you  would  be  so  divinely  dull?  I  suppose  you 
expect  your  servants  to  have  sheets,  when  you  go 
to  housekeeping?  " 

"  I  never  thought, >?  said  Avis  faintly.  "  And  is 
that  what  she  meant,  too,  about  towels?  She's 
been  exhausting  the  subject  of  towels,  Coy.  There 
is  something  very  remarkable  about  them.  I  think 
you  cut  the  fringe,  or  else  you  fell — let  me  see. 
No,  I  think  you  overcast  it.  I  think  it  was  very 
Ul-mannered  in  aunt  Chloe." 

u  A  roller-cloth  would  do,  dear,"  suggested  Coy 
soothingly.  "  And  no  New-England  servant  would 
mind  camping  out.  I  wouldn't  trouble  myself,  if 
I  were  you." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  225 

But  Avis  sat  looking  at  her  with  wide  eyes,  like 
an  injured  goddess.  Women  upon  whom  domestic 
details  sit  with  a  natural,  or  even  an  acquired  grace, 
will  need  to  cultivate  their  sympathies  with  this  young 
recoiling  creature.  Across  her  picture  or  her  poem, 
looking  up  a  little  blindly,  she  had  listened  to  the 
household  chatter  of  women,  with  a  kind  of  gentle 
indifference,  such  as  one  feels  about  the  habits  of 
the  Fee-jeeans.  Unbleached  cotton,  like  x  in  the 
algebra,  represented  an  unknown  quantity  of  oppres- 
sive but  extremely  distant  facts.  How  had  she 
brought  herself  into  a  world  where  the  fringe  upon 
a  towel  must  become  a  subject  requiring  fixed 
opinions  ? 

She  bade  Coy  good-by  abruptly,  fled  to  her  studio, 
and  worked  till  dark. 

But,  when  she  went  into  the  house,  she  found  aunt 
Chloe  advancing  a  new  theory  about  comforters. 
In  Vermont  they  were  quilted  at  home.  But  there 
were  advantages  in  purchasing  them  outright,  not  to 
be  under-estimated,  unless  —  as  in  the  case  of  Miss 
Snipper,  a  worthy  young  woman  who  had  put  two 
brothers  through  college,  and  one  into  the  Hawaiian 
field  (he  died  in  six  months,  poor  fellow!) — you 
really  felt  it  a  duty  to  employ  a  seamstress  ;  and  the 
professor  made  so  much  less  trouble  about  having 
her  at  the  table  ;  which  was  the  more  to  his  credit, 
as  her  teeth  were  set  by  so  inefficient  a  dentist,  and 
make  that  peculiar  noise,  especially  with  biscuit. 
But  aunt  Chloe  thought  milk-toast  would  remedy 
the  difficulty. 


226  -THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

"  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  p'ing  is  a  ' calling '  or  '  exclaim- 
ing'  tone;  theshangisa  'questioning'  tone;  the  ki\  is  a  'despairing' 
tone;  and  the  hia-p'ing,  an  'assenting'  tone;  the  ja-shung  is  an 
'abrupt'  stop."— CHINESE  GRAMMAE. 

IT  was  in  the  heart  of  the  happy  winter  that  Os- 
trander,  sitting  one  day  by  the  study-fire  with 
Avis,  after  a  long  walk  over  the  frozen  beach,  said 
quietty,  as  if  resuming  a  broken  conversation,  — 

" But,  Avis,  is  this  to  last  forever?" 

"  This?"  She  turned  to  catch  his  meaning,  dull 
with  happiness.  "  It  is  pleasant  enough  to  last  for- 
ever, I  think,"  she  said,  throwing  herself  back  in 
her  deep  chair.  She  sat  drowned  in  her  furs  and 
partially  loosened  cape :  her  cheek  had  the  vivid 
flush  that  a  winter-night  paints  upon  young  faces, 
and  the  fine  excitement  which  accompanies  it,  hovered 
in  her  eyes. 

"  But  our  own  home  would  be  like  this  always," 
persisted  he,  with  the  vague  and  blessed  fatuity  of 
a  lover's  imagination,  which,  while  it  may  perceive 
the  trail  of  the  serpent  over  Adam's  Eden,  or  Tom 
Smith's,  or  3~ours,  or  mine,  hears  in  its  own  only  the 
rustle  of  the  leaf  upon  the  tree  of  life. 

Avis,  who  had  now  lost  her  brilliant  color,  and  sat 
quite  dull  and  still,  said,  — 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  227 

"I  wish  a  man  and  woman  could  be  always  en- 
gaged !  What  are  you  laughing  at,  Philip?" 

"  Should  you  really  like  it  to  be  so  —  for  you  and 
me?"  asked  Ostrander,  with  a  smile  that  was  grave 
enough. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Avis  promptly.  "  Of  course  I 
should.  I  am  perfectly  happy  as  we  are.  I  think 
most  women  would  be." 

"But  I,"  suggested  Ostrander,  "  am  not  happy. 
I  am  tired  of  a  homeless  life ;  I  have  lived  one  so 
long!"  He  had  never  so  distinctly  urged  his  own 
need  upon  her  before.  Avis  listened  attentively. 
Her  precious  freedom  —  wild  rebel  that  it  was  !  pet- 
ted, perhaps,  and  over-indulged  —  took  on  to  her 
mind  for  the  first  time,  faintly,  the  aspect  of  a  self- 
ish delight.  To  be  sure,  Philip  had  no  home,  like 
herself,  no  consonance  of  household  repose  and  love 
let  into  his  life.  She  had  not  thought  sufficiently  of 
that. 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  press  any  claim  or  want  of  mine 
unduly,"  he  went  on  gently  ;  "  but  there  is  my  work. 
I  have  my  future  to  make  ;  I  don't  want  it  to  be  one 
that  my  wife  shall  be  ashamed  of.  Situated  as  1 
am,  I  cannot  command  my  best  conditions.  With 
his  home  and  his  wife,  a  man  must  develop  him- 
self, if  he  ever  can.  With  you,  Avis,  with  you" 
he  paused,  much  agitated,  "there  are  no  bounds  but 
those  of  my  own  nature  that  will  prevent  my  life  from 
becoming  at  least  a  worthy  if  not  a  noble  deed." 

Long  years  after,  these  words  came  back  to  Avis 


228  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

DobelTs  memory,  like  the  carven  stone  into  which 
time  has  wrought  meanings  that  the  sculptor's  mind 
or  hand  was  impotent  to  grasp. 

"Come,  now,"  he  continued  more  lightly,  "an 
honest  word  for  an  honest  word,  Avis  !  Do  you  sup- 
pose, if  I  let  you  go  on  just  as  you  like,  you  would 
ever  make  a  definite  step  towards  our  wedding- 
day?" 

"  No,"  said  the  woman,  after  a  long  pause. 
"  Never!"  She  threw  back  her  wrappings  with  a 
suffocated  look,  and  paced  for  a  few  minutes  back 
and  forth  before  the  brilliant  fire,  a  silhouette  in  her 
falling  feather  and  dark  winter-dress.  Ostrander 
watched  her  with  compressed  lip  and  guarded  eye. 
He  was  prepared  for  a  long  and  serious  contest,  in 
which  he  had  fully  made  up  his  mind  not  to  be 
worsted.  By  gradations  as  fine  as  the  shades  in  a 
woman's  fancy  —  too  fine  for  any  man  but  a  deter- 
mined lover  to  be  patient  with  —  he  expected  her  to 
taunt,  torment,  allure,  baffle,  but  yield  to  him  now. 
He  had  not  understood  (what  man  ever  understood 
a  complex  woman?)  the  immortal  element  of  sur- 
prise in  her  nature.  He  sat  dumb  with  delight  under 
the  look  and  the  motion  with  which  she  present!}' 
turned  to  him.  As  beautiful  is  the  pliability  of  a 
torrent  meeting  its  first  unconquerable  resistance  ;  it 
surrenders  as  mightily  as  it  defied. 

"  You  are  perfectly  right,"  she  said  with  a  grave, 
sweet  dignity ;  "  and  I  have  been  very  foolish.  If 
j'ou  leave  me  to  myself,  I  shall  never  make  any  change 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  229 

in  any  thing.  If  I  am  ever  to  become  your  wife,  let 
it  be  all  over  with  as  soon  as  possible.*' 

They  were  married  in  three  weeks. 

If  ever  the  Christian  character  deepened  under  dis- 
cipline, aunt  Chloe's  should  have  been  that  character 
at  the  end  of  this  memorable  time.  We  are  all  of  us 
a  little  incredulous  of  our  neighbor's  affliction ;  but 
among  the  radical  trials  of  life,  who  could  fail  to 
rank  the  rearing  of  a  motherless  child  to  a  marriage 
in  which  neither  the  trousseau  nor  the  upholstery  com- 
manded the  proper  respect  of  the  bride  ?  Unless,  aa 
some  one  has  told  us,  deficiency  of  charity  be  defi- 
ciency of  imagination,  we  must  feel  sorry  for  aunt 
Chloe. 

Avis  positively  refused,  at  the  outset,  to  investi- 
gate the  deeps  beyond  the  lowest  deeps  that  under- 
lay the  nature  of  unbleached  cotton ;  asked  why,  if 
a  woman  had  money  enough  to  buy  blankets,  she 
must  sit  an  hour  discussing  the  wadding  of  a  com- 
forter ;  and  failed  utterly  to  see  why  the  marriage- 
certificate  wrould  not  be  valid  without  the  interven- 
tion of  Miss  Snipper  and  the  milk-toast.  There  was 
a  compromise  upon  these  fatal  questions.  Aunt 
Chloe  retained  the  privilege  of  seeing  to  it  that  Avis 
entered  upon  the  holy  estate  of  matrimony  as  a  lady 
ought,  with  a  dozen  of  every  thing,  upon  sole  condi- 
tion that  Avis  herself  should  not  be  consulted.  In- 
stead, therefore,  of  a  heavy-eyed,  exhausted  woman, 
whose  every  nerve  was  stitched  into  her  clothes,  Avis 
came  to  her  wedding-day  brilliant  with  health,  and 
calm  as  the  sky. 


230  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

This  little  fact  was  the  more  memorable  because 
it  left  her  to  her  instincts,  and  no  one  knew  quite 
how  those  led  her  to  dispose  of  these  three  weeks. 
She  was  much  in  the  open  air,  pacing  the  shore  and 
the  snowy  fields ;  or  she  worked  intently  in  the 
studio ;  or  she  sat  alone  with  unshared,  inscrutable 
moods.  Ostrander  would  have  said  that  he  scarcely 
saw  her  in  all  that  time.  She  received  him  quietly, 
but  with  a  withdrawal  which  he  dared  not  disturb. 
It  was  evident  that  she  preferred  her  solitude  to 
himself.  He  left  her  to  her  fancy,  not  altogether, 
perhaps,  without  some  comprehension  of  it.  A  man 
does  not  live  a  celibate  till  thirty-one  without  be- 
coming fully  as  conscious  of  the  perils  as  of  the 
pleasures  of  a  wedded  future.  Ostrander  would  not 
have  thought  it  possible,  however,  that  he  could  put 
his  broad  shoulders  beneath  this  sweet  yoke  with  so 
slight  a  protest.  His  feeling  that  he  accepted  a 
sacrifice  radically  so  much  deeper  than  any  he  could 
ever  make,  overswept  the  superficial  shrinking  from 
change,  which  perhaps  ah1  but  the  youngest  lovers 
feel  in  more  or  less  degree  upon  the  immediate  eve 
of  marriage.  He  felt  impressed  by  his  dim  concep- 
tion of  the  strong  individual  struggle  in  the  nature 
of  this  woman  whom  he  loved.  His  whole  soul  con- 
centred itself,  with  a  unity  not  habitual  to  him  in  all 
things,  upon  the  effort  to  adjudge  himself  worthy  of 
the  acquiescence  of  her  life  with  his.  He  tried  to 
tell  her  so  the  day  before  their  marriage.  But  she 
gave  him  one  look  which  stopped  the  breath  of  his 
soul,  for  joy ;  and  he  tried  no  more  just  then. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  231 

It  was  the  simplest  of  weddings.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
John  Rose  were  there,  and  Barbara  ;  but  her  brother 
was  out  of  town  on  business.  Barbara  looked  at 
Ostrander,  and  remembered  the  tea-rose.  Ostrander 
looked  at  Barbara,  and  forgot  it.  Poor  Chatty  Ho- 
garth was  got  over  with  her  wheeled  chair ;  and  Fred- 
erick Maynard  came  to  see  what  he  was  known  to 
have  pronounced  ' '  the  burial  of  the  most  promising 
artist  in  New  England  ;  "  and  at  A  vis's  request  the 
family  servant  came  in ;  and  her  father  (who,  as  is 
so  usual  with  the  collegiate  instructors  of  America, 
had  begun  life  in  the  pulpit)  married  them;  while 
aunt  Chloe,  with  a  mind  at  peace  with  God  and 
man  upon  the  subject  of  the  wedding-cake,  which  no 
New- York  caterer  had  been  allowed  to  handle  for 
Tier  niece,  protected  her  silver-gray  silk  from  her 
honest,  sparse  tears,  and  made  it  clearly  understood 
among  the  guests,  that  Mrs.  Ostrander's  health  had 
not  permitted  her  attending  her  son's  marriage,  and 
that  the  young  people  would  visit  her  in  New  Hamp- 
shire upon  their  brief  little  wedding-tour. 

They  had  a  relenting  February  day,  in  which  the 
prophecy  of  the  neap  spring  was  audible,  as  the 
whisper  of  one  dear  to  us  across  a  darkened  room. 
The  windows  were  flung  open  in  the  house,  and  the 
well-worn  path  to  the  studio  was  without  frost,  yield- 
ing timidly  to  the  touch  of  the  foot  that  loved  it. 

Avis  slipped  away  somehow,  and  was  missing 
after  the  wedding :  her  husband  went  in  search  of 
her.  He  found  her,  as  he  had  expected,  in  the 


232  THE-  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

studio.  The  disarray  of  packing  put  a  chill  deso- 
lation into  the  room.  The  pictures  were  boxed  or 
gone  ;  the  easels  folded  against  the  wall ;  only  the 
sphinx  was  left.  There  had  been  no  fire  in  the 
building  that  week.  Avis,  in  the  middle  of  the  cold 
little  neglected  place,  stood  shivering  in  her  wed- 
ding-dress. 

He  held  his  arms  out,  smih'ng,  but  with  an  emo- 
tion which  he  found  it  difficult  not  to  call  sad  even 
at  that  moment.  He  was  so  sorry  to  startle,  to 
grieve,  or  distress  her,  by  the  inevitable  presence  of 
his  feeling.  There  seemed  to  him  just  then  some- 
thing inexorable,  like  a  Pagan  Fate,  in  the  nature  of 
a  mighty  love.  They  two,  standing  there  in  the 
yielding  winter  sunshine,  seemed  like  children  swept 
and  lost  within  it. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  seeking  to  dissipate  the 
almost  oppressive  solemnity  which  the  moment  had 
assumed  for  him,  and  coming  up  behind  her  where 
she  stood  before  the  still  incomplete  but  now 
strongly-indicated  and  impressive  picture,  "  what 
would  you  do  if  you  had  to  choose  now  between  us, 
—  the  sphinx  and  me  ?  ' ' 

"  A  man  cannot  understand,  perhaps,"  said  Avis, 
after  a  long  silence,  "or  he  would  never  ask  a 
woman  such  a  bitter  question." 

"Oh!  we  will  have  no  bitter  questions  to-day," 
he  murmured,  taking  a  step  back  to  look  at  her. 
There  seemed  to  him  something  strangely  select  and 
severe  in  her  unornamented  dress.  Only  an  artist 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  233 

could  make  such  a  bride.  Her  silk  drapery  hung 
about  her  like  the  marble  folds  upon  a  statue. 

u  Can  you  understand,"  continued  Avis,  ignoring 
or  unconscious  of  his  look,  "  that  I  might  —  perhaps 
—  choose  to  stay  with  the  sphinx  to-day  —  and  not 
mind  it  much?  " 

"I  think  I  can,"  he  said,  hesitating.  "No,  I 
will  not  mind.  I  can't  be  jealous  even  of  the  sphinx 
just  now." 

"And  then,"  she  added,  turning  sharply,  so  that 
she  stood  with  her  face  averted  from  him,  "  another 
day,"- 

"  Oh  !  and  what  the  other  day  ?  " 

Avis  did  not  answer.  Impetuous  words  bounded 
to  her  lips ;  but  they  were  checked  by  an  instinct 
that  she  herself  did  not  comprehend.  Her  nature 
recoiled  on  itself  in  the  discover}7  that  she  had  begun 
to  tell  him  that  she  could  think  of  no  price  too  costly 
by  which  to  purchase  her  way  back  to  him. 

She  stood  in  her  white  dress  with  burning  cheeks. 
She  wondered  if,  when  a  woman  had  been  for  half  a 
lifetime  a  happy  wife,  she  could  let  her  husband  un- 
derstand how  much  she  loved  him.  Her  love  seemed 
to  her  an  eternal  secret.  Her  soul  spoke  to  his  in 
whispers.  It  were  unwomanly,  unwifely,  to  lavish 
herself. 

After  a  silent  moment,  she  gh'ded  to  him  like  a 
goddess,  and  for  the  first  time  of  her  own  unguided, 
or  it  might  be  unguarded  will,  his  wife  lifted  her  lips 
to  his. 


234  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

They  passed  out  together  into  the  pliant  air  ;  and 
aunt  Chloe  came  calling  about  the  carriage  and  the 
people ;  and  the  sky,  when  they  looked  up  to  it 
through  the  garden  trees,  lifted  itself,  and  widened, 
like  a  joy  whose  nature  knows  no  end.  They  passed 
on  through  the  golden  weather,  in  the  solemn  separ- 
ate ness  from  all  our  little  common  cares  and  pleasures, 
which  to  have  known  is  to  have  lived,  and  to  have 
missed  is  to  hope  for  life  beyond. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  235 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

"In  the  opinion  of  the  world  marriage  ends  all,  as  it  does  in  a 
comedy.  The  truth  is  precisely  the  reverse.  It  begins  all."  —  MME. 

Di;  SWETCHINE. 

"  Who  hath  most,  he  yearneth  most, 
Sure  as  seldom  heretofore, 
Somewhere  of  the  gracious  more. 
Deepest  joy  the  least  shall  boast, 
Asking  with  new-opened  eyes 
The  remainder."    .    .    .— JEAN  INGELOW. 

THE  reluctance  with  which  we  turn  from  any  in- 
tense feeling,  whether  of  pain  or  pleasure,  to  a 
lower  level  of  emotion,  is  a  psychological  study  for 
which  the  curriculum  of  Harmouth  University  un- 
questionably finds  a  proper  place  in  the  lecture-room, 
where  all  well-classified  feelings  go,  but  strictly  in 
view  of  which,  it  does  not  regulate  the  academical 
year.  Granting  that  the  corporation  agreed  to  honor 
him  by  the  offer  of  a  chair,  Harmouth  would  have 
summoned  Adam  out  of  Eden,  had  the  Lord  chosen 
to  create  him  in  term-time. 

It  lacked  still  some  weeks  to  the  spring  vacation, 
and  Ostrander's  bridal  tour  was  necessarily  com- 
pressed almost  between  two  sabbath  sunsets.  They 
did  not  get  up  into  New  Hampshire,  after  all.  He 
found  himself  suffering  somewhat  from  the  capricious 
weather ;  and  it  would  be  really  worth  more  to  his 
mother,  he  said,  to  see  them  in  July. 


236  TH#  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

The  two  young  people  came  dreamily  to  their  own 
home.  The  afternoon  that  they  were  to  come,  Coy 
and  aunt  Chloe  held  confidential  counsel  in  the 
expectant  house,  a  passable  place,  which  had  been 
selected  in  the  perplexed  patience  with  which  we 
adjust  ourselves  to  all  depressed  ideals.  Avis  in 
the  town  was  like  a  bird  that  has  flown  through  a 
window  by  mistake.  The  sea  could  be  heard,  but 
not  seen,  from  her  chamber- window.  The  noise  from 
the  street  interrupted  the  library.  It  was  not  quite 
clear  where  the  studio  was  to  be,  unless  in  the  attic. 
But  there  were  elms  in  the  yard,  and  crocuses  in  the 
garden,  and  the  house  stood  at  three  minutes'  walk 
from  the  college  green.  This,  in  view  of  the  New- 
England  winters,  and  the  delicate  health  of  the 
young  professor,  was  decisive. 

"  I  can  arrange  about  the  studio  somehow,"  Avis 
had  said. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Ostrander,  "  that  must  be  man- 
aged." He  meant  to  manage  it,  of  course.  There 
should  be  no  trouble  about  the  studio.  And  aunt 
Chloe  said  approvingly,  — 

"You  do  quite  right,  Avis,  my  dear,  to  consult 
Mr.  Ostrander 's  interest  first." 

Avis  vaguely  resented  this,  she  could  not  have 
told  why.  She  had  no  principles  but  the  instinctive 
code  of  daily  love,  about  deif}ing  her  husband's 
interests,  and  had  found  women  singularly  weak 
upon  this  point.  But  it  was  quite  reasonable  that 
Philip  should  be  near  the  college :  she  thought  she 
had  done  no  more  than  good  manners  required. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  237 

"Poor  Avis,"  said  aunt  Chloe  plaintively,  as  she 
and  Coy  put  the  last  touches  to  the  small  dining- 
room,  where  tea  was  spread  for  the  travellers,  "  would 
have  pink  doyleys.  Of  course,  the  first  cooked 
huckleberry  will  ruin  them.  And  I  told  her  they 
never  could  be  used  with  English  breakfast-tea,  and 
they  fade  in  washing  beyond  all  belief." 

"Yes,  they  fade  like  a  sunrise,"  said  Mrs.  Rose 
demurely ;  ' '  but  Avis  is  precisely  one  of  those 
women  of  whom  you  can  say  that  she  never  will  be 
married  again.  And  salt  sets  them.  Is  this  the 
china  she  painted  ?  How  like  Avis !  At  first  you 
don't  understand  it,  then  it  bewitches  you.  See, 
every  piece  has  a  feather  on  it,  —  a  different  feather  ! 
She  has  wrought  some  fancy  about  her  own  name 
into  this  tea-table,  I'll  venture.  Oh,  I  see  !  No,  I 
don't ;  I  don't  see.  I  suppose  we're  not  expected 
to  see.  That  rose-curlew  on  the  creamer  is  like  — 
a  singing-leaf,  I  think." 

"Perhaps  so,"  moaned  aunt  Chloe.  "But  have 
you  seen  the  vegetable-dishes  ?  Not  a  handle  that  a 
servant  could  get  hold  of  if  her  thumbs  were  all 
fingers.  And  that  rep  in  the  parlor,  poor  child,  may 
last  her  through  the  summer.  And  when  I  told  her 
how  easy  it  was  to  slip  down  newspapers  —  and  I'm 
sure  you  can  get  them  up  again  while  the  door-bell 
rings,  and  a  housekeeper  can't  begin  by  counting  a 
little  trouble  like  that  —  but  if  I'd  proposed  plated 
spoons  it  couldn't  have  been  worse.  Not  that  I've 
said  much  about  it  to  her  father ;  for  he  is  so  over- 


238  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

worked,  and  it  never  does  to  worry  a  literary  man : 
they  weaken  down  under  it  like  a  baby  under  the 
whooping-cough.  But  when  I  come  into  this  house, 
and  think  of  those  two,  I  am  —  I  am  very  much 
troubled,"  said  aunt  Chloe,  stiffening  suddenly  at 
the  discover}-  that  one  slow  tear  had  rolled  into  the 
Japanese  tea-pot.  "Now,  while  she  was  painting 
all  this  china,  she  might  have  learned  to  set  white- 
bread,  at  least  with  milk ;  and  the  yeast  I  could 
have  looked  after.  Mr.  Ostrander  may  dine  off 
painted  feathers  a  while  ;  but  he's  too  literary  to  like 
it  long.  No  men  are  so  fussy  about  what  they  eat 
as  those  who  think  their  brains  the  biggest  part 
of  them,  though  my  brother  is  very  patient,  and  easy 
to  pacify.  And  poor  Avis  knows  no  more  what  is 
before  her  than  if  she  were  keeping  house  with  little 
stones  and  broken  crockery  in  a  huckleberry-pas- 
ture on  a  Saturday  afternoon." 

"There's  a  baker,"  said  Coy  soothingly,  "and 
Mr.  Ostrander  is  very  much  in  love  with  her."  But 
in  her  heart  she  shared  aunt  Chloe's  anxieties  more 
acutely  than  she  found  it  worth  while  to  allow. 
Coy  had  a  delicate  loyalty  about  expressing  them. 
She  did  not  talk  much  about  Avis,  even  with  John 
himself :  she  wished  to  spare  Avis  the  sting  which 
pricks  the  brightest  hours  fate  yields  to  some  of 
us?  —  the  knowledge,  that,  behind  the  shield  we  hold 
before  our  dazzling  happiness,  a  prudential  commit- 
tee of  our  friends  sits  indorsing — whether  in  our 
temper,  health,  income,  complexion,  or  the  nature 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  239 

of  things — a  grudge  against  our  delirium.  Coy  rev- 
erenced the  severe  old  canon  which  bids  us  rejoice 
in  the  joy  of  the  soul  we  love. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ostrander  came  with  'the  laggard 
March  sunset.  Avis  moved  about  the  house  radiant 
and  unwearied  as  a  Hebe :  even  the  dust  of  travel 
seemed  to  glitter  on  her.  Coy  and  her  husband,  the 
professor  and  aunt  Chloe,  remained,  at  her  wish,  to 
dedicate  the  pleasant  tea-table.  Certainly  there 
was  never  a  pleasanter.  And  the  bread  was  aunt 
Chloe' s.  Avis  presided  dreamily.  The  room  was 
alive  with  color.  She  felt  rather  than  perceived  the 
rose-tint  of  the  linen,  the  bronze  prism  on  the  pea- 
cock's plume  which  encircled  the  cup  that  she  lifted 
to  her  lips,  the  Pompeiian  red  upon  the  walls,  the 
mellowed  meaning  of  the  Japanese  coloring  upon 
the  lamp-screen,  the  nutter  of  the  bright  ribbon  at 
her  own  throat,  the  luminous  presence  of  her  hus- 
band's face.  She  lifted  her  eyes  to  him  timidly  for 
the  first  time  across  their  own  table.  Life  put  a 
finger  on  its  lips  like  a  child  with  a  secret  to  tell. 
Love  was  a  mystery  that  went  deepening  before  her. 
She  stood  with  one  foot  on  an  untrod  path  that 
broadened  to  the  sun.  She  shrank  from  the  ad- 
vance, nay,  even  from  the  existence,  of  unexplored 
joy.  She  was  afraid  to  be  so  happy. 

He  found  her,  when,  at  an  earty  hour,  their  friends 
had  left  them  to  themselves  in  the  silent  house,  in  a 
daydream  in  the  middle  of  the  parlor,  just  where 
she  had  bidden  her  father  good-night.  He  came 


240  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

and  stood  beside  her  ;  but  he,  too,  found  it  difficult  to 
speak.  He  was  silenced  with  joy:  to  find  words 
for  it  was  a  task  sacred  and  slow,  like  selecting  an 
earthly  lily  for  an  angel  to  carry  into  heaven.  He 
did  not  try,  it  seemed,  and  for  that  she  liked  him 
better  ;  for  he  said  only  presently,  — 

"  Are  you  too  tired  to  go  over  the  house  to-night, 
Avis?  Will  it  not  be  pleasant  to  see  how  it  all 
looks  at  first  ?  And  in  the  morning  I  must  get  to 
college  early. " 

She  felt  grateful  to  him  for  the  easy  commonplace 
words  as  they  wandered  up  and  down,  hand  in 
hand,  through  "  that  new  world  which  is  the  old." 
She  wondered  how  women  ever  became  used  to  their 
husbands,  and  spoke  of  them  indifferently,  as  Mr. 
Smith  or  Mr.  Jones. 

This  home  —  their  home  —  lifted  its  walls  gravely 
about  her  like  a  temple ;  and  this  man  whose  wife 
she  was,  ministered  therein  a  high  priest,  before 
whom  her  soul  trod  softly.  She  had  never  perceived 
before  how  solemn  a  thing  it  is  to  found  a  human 
home.  Most  of  those  experiences  which  make  the 
whole  world  kin  must  become  personal  to  become 
interesting.  The  truism  was  now  the  discovery. 

Avis  had  contrived,  it  was  impossible  to  say  how, 
—  for  never  did  a  bride  take  possession  of  a  house, 
knowing  so  little  what  was  in  it, — to  stamp  her 
individuality  with  a  delicate  but  distinct  definition 
upon  her  home. 

"It  is  like  going  from  flower  to  flower,"  said 
Ostrander,  as  they  strolled  from  room  to  room. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  241 

On  certain  points  Avis  had  been  stringent.  What- 
ever the  vague  necessities  in  the  matter  of  tin-ware, 
aunt  Chloe  should  not  put  a  scarlet  cricket  or  a 
purple  tidy  in  the  same  room  with  a  maroon  curtain. 
His  library  was  a  harmony  in  green  and  gray.  The 
little  room  upon  whose  windows  the  buds  of  the 
elm-tree  tapped  was  a  melody  in  blue.  In  her  own 
room  Avis  had  gathered  the  shades  of  the  rose.  The 
little  house  was  a  study  in  color.  To  the  young 
man,  coming  out  of  the  cold  spaces  of  so  many 
homeless  years,  it  seemed,  that  night,  like  a  new 
and  glowing  science,  wilich  it  would  take  him  as 
long  to  command  as  to  possess  the  mysterious  nature 
of  his  wife.  Both  awed  him.  He  watched  her  with 
held  breath  as  she  moved,  gentle  with  the  new 
domestic  touch  and  stir,  that  sat  so  strangely  on 
her.  She  breathed  color,  he  thought,  as  other  women 
breathed  pale  air. 

Avis  left  him  presently  to  look  over  some  matters 
for  his  morning  class,  and  herself  strolled  about  the 
house  alone.  It  was  one  of  the  small  surprises  of 
life  to  her  to  find  herself  stroking  the  curtains,  and 
patting  the  pillows,  like  other  women  whom  she  had 
seen  in  other  new  houses  ;  to  see  that  her  hand  lin- 
gered upon  her  own  door-knobs  even,  with  a  caress. 
The  thrill  of  possession,  the  passion  of  home,  had 
awaked  itself  in  a  sleeping  side  of  her  nature.  In 
her  own  room  there  was  a  very  fine  East  India  ham- 
mock, woven  of  a  lithe  pearl-white  cord,  much  fa- 
vored for  this  purpose  by  people  of  ease  in  tropi- 


242  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

cal  countries.  Avis  put  it  there,  because,  against  the 
color  of  the  walls  and  draper}',  it  had  a  peculiarly 
delicate  and  negligent  effect,  grateful  to  her  in  the 
confined  house.  Above  it,  against  a  deeply-stained 
panel,  stood  her  own  Melian  Venus. 

She  flung  herself  into  the  hammock,  and  yielded 
to  its  light  motion  idty.  As  idly  she  thought  of  her 
future,  of  her  work,  of  the  sphinx  in  the  cold, 
closed  studio.  Not  to-morrow,  perhaps,  but  some 
day,  she  should  convert  her  delight  into  deeds. 

It  seemed  to  her  a  necessity1  simple  as  the  rhythm 
of  a  poem,  or  the  syntax  of  a  sentence,  that  the 
world  should  be  somehow  made  nobler  or  purer  by 
her  happiness.  By  and  by  she  should  know  how  to 
spell  it  out. 

Her  husband  called  her  presently  from  the  foot  of 
the  stairs,  and  she  stole  down  to  him  with  a  beautiful 
timidity.  She  did  not  tell  him  what  she  had  been 
thinking  :  she  felt  as  if  he  understood.  This  is  what 
it  is  to  be  happy,  to  believe  that  our  thought  is 
shared  before  it  can  be  spared. 

She  had  exchanged  her  travelling-dress,  while  she 
was  up  stairs,  for  a  loose  wrapper,  over  which  she 
had  thrown  a  shawl  —  a  crape  shawl  —  that  he  had 
never  seen.  He  put  his  hand  upon  it,  and  said,  — 

"  You  do  not  often  wear  this  color,  Avis.  What 
do  you  call  it?" 

4 '  It  is  carmine." 

"  It  looks  like  a  live  thing." 

"  It  is  oiieof  the  colors  made  from  the  cochineal," 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  243 

said  Avis.  "  I  have  always  fancied  that  they  throb 
with  the  life  that  has  been  yielded  to  make  them. 
Do  you  like  it,  Philip?" 

4 '  Like  it  ?  How  should  I  know  ?  You  are  in  it . " 
She  blushed  gently :  she  was  glad  he  thought  the 
carmine  suited  her  ;  she  loved  it  too  well  to  wear  it 
at  hap-hazard.  One  of  those  subtle  fancies  which 
the  happiest  woman  does  not  expect  to  share  with 
the  man  she  loves,  came  to  her  just  then.  She  would 
not  wear  this  color  except  for  him.  Her  soul  seemed 
filled  with  fine  reserves,  winding  corridors  of  fancy, 
closed  rooms  of  thought,  deep  recesses  of  feeling, 
which  she  curtained  from  him  by  a  lofty  instinct. 

The  nature  of  the  wife  withdrew  itself  with  a 
deeper  than  maidenly  reticence.  She  feared  lest 
her  great  love  should  put  into  his  hands  the  key  to 
a  fair  palace  in  which  she  would  that  he  should  be 
forever  an  expectant  guest. 

uWhat  are  you  thinking,  Avis?"  he  asked  her 
suddenly.  A  certain  contraction  of  her  forehead 
which  he  did  not  know,  and  the  familiar  throbbing 
of  the  temple,  arrested  him. 

"  I  was  thinking,"  she  began,  and  hesitated. 

"  Are  not  your  thoughts  to  be  mine,  love?  " 

He  drew  her  to  him  slowly.  In  the  rich  color  of 
her  loose  drapery  she  had  the  poised,  reluctant  look 
of  the  fine  Jacques  rose. 

"  I  was  only  wondering,"  she  said.  "  I  was 
thinking  that  there  are  women  in  the  world  whose 
husbands  have  ceased  to  love  them.  I  can  think  of 
nothing  else  like  that." 


244  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  You  could  never,  under  any  conditions,  be  one 
of  those  women,"  murmured  the  young  husband 
rapturously. 

"I?"  said  Avis,  looking  for  the  moment  per- 
plexed. "I  was  not  thinking  of  myself.  I  was 
sorry  for  the  poor  women.  But  I  would  rather  be 
such  a  woman  than  such  a  man.  I  begin  to  be  sorry 
and  glad  about  many  things,  in  many  strange  ways, 
new  ways  of  which  I  never  thought.  Philip,  two 
people  who  love  one  another  might  almost  make 
the  world  over,  it  seems  to  me.  Joy  is  so  strong  — 
we  are  so  strong.  God  will  ask  a  great  deal  of  us." 

"If  he  asks  he  shall  receive,"  said  the  young 
man  solemnly.  He  was  impressed  with  her  reverent 
mood :  he  assimilated  it  so  perfectly,  that  he  could 
have  thought  it  was  an  impulse  of  his  own  which  she 
rather  had  perceived  and  reflected.  He  asked  her 
for  a  Bible,  and  himself  suggested  that  they  have 
prayer.  With  an  agitated  voice  he  sought  God's 
blessing  upon  their  home  and  upon  their  love. 

They  talked  no  more  of  lesser  things  after  this. 
Avis  moved  about  hushed  and  happy ;  she  stirred, 
putting  his  books  and  papers  in  order  upon  the  table. 
He  watched  her  with  eyes  beaten  faint  by  love. 

"  You  must  not  tire  yourself  to  work,  dear  love," 
she  said.  She  had  never  called  him  so  before. 

Shivering  like  a  cremona  upon  which  a  discord  had 
been  struck,  Avis  started,  when  at  the  newly-painted 
door  of  the  new  little  gleaming  room,  there  fell  a  sud- 
den knock.  It  was  the  new  c 4  girl. ' '  Ostracder  had 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  245 

forgotten  that  there  was  anybody  in  the  house  but 
themselves.  Avis  looked  at  her  in  gentle  perplex* 
ity.  It  seemed  to  her  a  remarkable  breach  of  good 
manners,  that  the  woman  should  have  come  at  all ; 
and  when  she  said,  — 

"  An'  what  is  it  yez  would  lave  me  to  get  for  your 
breakfast?"  Mrs.  Ostrander  could  have  dismissed 
her  on  the  spot. 

Philip  Ostrander  now  plunged  into  his  life's  work 
with  the  supreme  vigor  of  joy.  His  ambition  took 
on  the  colors  of  his  emotion,  and  fired  feverishly. 
He  assumed  the  drudgeries  of  his  position  with  the 
fervor  of  a  far  more  conscientious  temperament ;  and 
its  excitements  took  on  the  character  of  a  thrill.  His 
really  brilliant  but  phosphoric  nature  strengthened 
into  honest  flame.  He  was  at  that  time  in  his  life 
a  marked  and  splendid  illustration  of  the  cohesive 
power  of  a  great  love.  His  own  wife  failed  some- 
times to  fathom  the  almost  pathetic  movement  with 
which,  in  those  days,  he  would  turn  to  her,  when  he 
came  home  from  the  lecture -room  over-wearied, 
holding  out  his  still  thin  hands,  and  ask  her  to 
strike  a  few  chords  for  him  upon  the  piano,  saying, 
as  he  did  so,  — 

"Harmony,  harmony!  Avis,  I  am  spent  for  a 
touch  of  harmony." 

And  when  her  eyes  only  asked  him  what  he 
meant,  when  she  had  satisfied  him  as  she  could, 
with  her  repressd,  rich  touch,  he  would  answer  that 


246  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

the  boys  had  tried  him,  that  something  had  jarred, 
that  there  was  a  discord  in  him. 

"  And  you,"  he  said,  —  "  you  quell  it  all."  And 
then  he  spoke  no  more ;  but  to  himself  he  said, 
bowing  his  forehead  on  her  yielding  hair,  "  Who  am 
I,  that  I  should  win  her?  " 

He  was  then,  at  least,  as  that  man  should  be  who 
has  gained  the  allegiance  of  a  strong  wife, — an 
awed  and  humble  man. 

Then  his  professional  work  began  to  partake  of  the 
gravity  of  his  happiness.  Professor  Dobell  brought 
to  his  daughter  from  the  green-room  of  the  university 
a  report  of  her  husband's  present  popularity  and  pro- 
spective power  in  the  college,  which  excited  her  like 
fine  wine.  For  a  little  while  that  seemed  to  her, 
added  to  ah*  the  other  elements  of  deep  emotion  in 
her  new  life,  as  much  excitement  as  she  could  sanely 
bear.  Her  own  work  she  deferred  resuming  from  day 
to  day,  but  neither  from  that  syncope  of  the  will,  nor 
fever  of  feeling,  which  threatens  the  integral  purpose 
of  a  woman  first  intoxicated  by  the  deification  of 
herself,  that  grows  from  ministry  to  the  man  she 
loves.  She  reasoned  herself  through  her  honeymoon 
and  its  succeeding  weeks  with  a  steady  eye.  The 
studio  was  not  in  order ;  and  she  chose  not  to  put 
into  her  picture  —  this  one  picture,  at  least  —  any 
element  less  permanent  than  repose.  She  decorated 
the  dados  in  her  hall  contentedly  :  the  sphinx  could 
wait. 

A  tender  sense  of  justice,  possibly,  mingled  itself 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  247 

with  this  course.  She  had  not  treated  Philip  so 
well  before  their  marriage,  that  she  need  accentuate 
her  haste  to  pursue  her  personal  aims  and  wishes 
now.  Each  lingering  sign  of  physical  weakness  in 
him  smote  her  with  a  rich  revenge.  She  watched 
the  lessening  pallor  of  his  temples  with  a  hidden 
remorse  of  which  she  dared  not  trust  herself  to  speak. 
Sometimes  she  stole  up,  and  kissed  the  still  promi- 
nent and  beating  vein  across  his  forehead,  darting 
like  a  vanished  thought  then  from  his  outstretched 
arms,  and  silent  afterwards  for  a  long  tune.  One 
day,  sitting  beside  him  in  the  full  light,  she  lifted 
his  hand,  which  was  whiter  than  her  own,  in  both 
her  sensitive,  healthful  palms,  and  brought  her  lips 
to  it  with  her  slow  and  delicate,  deepening  touch. 
Then,  when  he  restrained  her,  she  sat  crimson.  She 
could  not  have  said  whether  she  was  more  afraid  of, 
or  more  savage  with,  herself.  She  had  never 
thought  before  that  she  could  care  to  kiss  her  hus- 
band's hand. 

But  in  these  days  she  felt  herself  wasted  with 
unsatisfied  sorrow  for  all  that  she  had  cost  him. 

For  him,  he  sat  blessed  and  blind  with  love.  He 
remembered  when  his  daring  fancy  had  first  asked 
itself,  "  What  will  her  tenderness  be?  "  Her  light- 
est endearment,  he  thought,  meant  more  than  the 
abnegation  of  other  women's  souls. 

A  little  thing  chanced  at  this  time  which  gave 
Avis  a  deep  pleasure,  and  which  threw  a  certain 
glamour,  even  in  her  husband's  own  e}res,  over  his 
brightening  popularity  in  the  college. 


248  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Dunng  the  two  years  of  travel  and  study  which 
had  preceded  Ostrander 's  connection  with  Harmouth, 
it  had  befallen  him,^one  Leipsic  vacation,  to  find 
himself  so  exhausted  with  the  term's  work,  that  his 
German  physician  ordered  an  immediate  sea- voyage. 
Ostrander,  never  loath  to  yield  himself  to  a  new  sen- 
sation, readily  threw  aside  the  laboratory  life  marked 
out  for  that  summer,  and  joined  a  fellow-student  on 
one  of  those  aimless  expeditions  so  alluring  to  a 
young,  unanchored  fancy,  shipping  on  a  trader, 
which,  for  aught  they  cared,  might  have  been  booked 
for  the  Chinese  Seas  or  the  River  St}^x.  It  chanced 
that  they  were  driven  by  gales  out  of  their  expected 
course,  which  skirted  the  South  Seas,  and  found 
themselves  in  the  Paumotu  Archipelago,  somewhere 
in  the  track  taken  first  by  the  Wilkes  Expedition,  and 
thereby  opened  since  to  navigators  and  missionaries. 
They  anchored  for  some  cause,  one  day,  off  an  island 
to  the  north-east  of  Tahiti,  —  a  small  coral  island 
uninhabited  by  man.  Ostrander  and  his  friend  rowed 
out,  overcome  by  an  emotion  which  they  were  still 
young  enough  to  try  and  express  to  one  another, 
and  beached  their  boat  upon  this  maiden  shore.  But 
Ostrander,  after  the  first  thrill  had  spent  itself,  wan- 
dered away  into  the  heart  of  the  place,  finding  him- 
self as  unable  to  share  the  impression  it  produced 
upon  him  as  he  would  have  been  to  share  the  heart 
of  a  woman  with  another  man.  He  plunged  on 
from  beckoning  thicket  to  beckoning  thicket,  reeling 
like  an  intoxicated  creature.  When  he  came  to 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  249 

himself,  he  was  in  a  wild  place  alone.  It  was  on 
the  bank  of  a  small  stream,  fair  but  fearful  to  him. 
The  virgin  repose  of  the  trees,  the  startled  look  of 
the  strange  flowers,  the  retreat  of  unseen  and  un- 
known creatures  rustling  through  the  undergrowth 
at  his  approach,  solemnized  the  nature  of  his  de- 
light. 

Suddenly,  as  he  sat  reverent  there,  a  bird  —  the 
island  was  peopled  with  rare  birds  —  settled  slowly 
over  his  head,  and  alighted  on  a  cactus  near  him.  It 
was  a  large  creature,  snow-white,  and  dropped  like 
an  angel  from  the  burning  sky. 

A  tide  of  feeling  half  terror,  half  joy,  overswept 
the  young  man,  sitting  there  with  upturned  face, 
gone  white  to  the  lips'  edge. 

Perhaps  there  was  not  a  young  scientist  in  the 
world  but  would  have  risked  years  of  his  life  to  be 
in  Ostrander's  place  at  that  moment. 

The  name  and  nature  of  that  bird  were  unknown 
to  science  ;  and  the  young  man  knew  it.  It  seemed 
to  him  as  if  Nature  laughed  in  his  face.  She  held 
out  this  one  sequestered,  shining  thought  of  hers, 
this  white  fancy  that  she  had  hidden  from  the  world, 
and  nodded,  crying,  "  Catch  it  if  you  can!  Clas- 
sify my  unwon  mood  in  your  bald  human  lore. 
Marry  my  choicest  tenderness  to  your  dull  future  if 
you  will.  See,  I  have  waited  for  you.  I  have  kept 
my  treasure  back  from  the  eye  and  hand  of  other 
men.  Yours  it  shall  be,  j^ours  only,  yours,  yours  !  " 

As  for  the  bird,  it  stirred  circling  on  the  scarlet 


250  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

cactus.  Ostrander  grasped  his  gun,  dropping  to  his 
hands  and  knees.  The  bounding  of  his  heart  de- 
layed his  shaking  aim. 

Pie  sought  to  calm  himself.  His  future  lay  bal- 
anced upon  that  long,  shining,  shuddering  barrel. 
To  capture  that  bird  was  fame :  so  at  least  the  situa- 
tion presented  itself  to  the  young  man.  When  we 
are  3roung,  nothing  seems  quite  so  likely  to  happen 
as  glory.  He  grew  pale,  with  faint  finger  on  the 
trigger.  The  bird  stood  perfectly  still. 

One  day  in  the  class-room  it  occurred  to  Ostran- 
der to  tell  this  story.  When  he  had  reached  this 
point  he  paused,  shaken  by  the  retrospect  of  one  of 
the  most  muscular  emotions  that  his  life  had  known. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  the  bird  stood  still.  It 
turned  its  head  and  looked  at  me :  its  eyes  shone 
with  a  singularly  soft,  pleased  light.  I  lowered  the 
gun.  How  could  I  fire?  I  crept  towards  it.  It  was 
a  beautiful  creature.  It  did  not  move :  I  thought 
it  was  gratified  at  the  sight  of  me.  It  acted  as  if 
it  had  never  seen  a  man  before :  I  do  not  suppose  it 
ever  had.  I  crawled  along ;  I  stretched  out  my 
hand :  and  yet  it  did  not  fly.  I  touched  it  —  I 
stroked  it.  With  this  hand  I  stroked  that  magnifi- 
cent, unknown  creature.  It  did  not  shrink.  I 
took  out  my  knife,  opened  it,  laid  it  down.  The 
bird  looked  at  me  confidingly.  I  put  the  blade  to 
its  throat;  but  it  would  not  stir.  It  trusted  me. 
Gentlemen,  I  came  away  —  I  could  not  kill  the 
bird." 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  251 

For  a  moment  after  the  young  professor  told  this 
story,  his  repressed  feeling  extended  itself,  like  the 
shade  of  a  powerful  cloud,  upon  the  class ;  and 
then  the  boys  broke  into  a  passion  of  cheers  that 
out-rang  till  the  old  college  walls  trembled  like  a 
being  surprised  by  something  in  its  own  nature  that 
it  had  never  perceived  before.  Ostrander  had  be- 
come the  demi-god  of  the  term. 

He  came  home  to  his  wife,  that  afternoon,  much 
moved  by  this  little  experience.  He  called  her  sev- 
eral times,  and,  receiving  no  answer,  sought  and 
found  her  in  their  own  room.  She  was  in  the  ham- 
mock under  the  Venus.  The  weather  was  warm,  and 
she  was  lightly  covered  with  a  white  "muslin  neg- 
ligee. The  instinct  of  the  English  tongue  has  done 
no  better  yet  than  to  level  the  artistic  possibilities 
of  this  garment  to  the  word  ''wrapper."  As  she 
lifted  her  head  at  his  knock  in  her  poised  way,  and, 
slipping  from  the  hammock,  stood  to  receive  him, 
holding  the  long  white  folds  of  her  dress,  he  looked 
at  the  Venus  behind  her,  and  said,  - — 

"  How  like  ypu  are  to  one  another !  And  I  have 
known  you  so  long,  and  never  thought  of  it  till  this 
moment.  Turn  your  head  —  so.  There.  Yes.  — 
What  were  you  doing  love,  when  I  came  in?  " 

"I  was  at  work." 

"At  work?" 

"  Thinking  where  I  had  better  put  —  what  I  shall 
do  about  the  studio?  "  said  Avis. 

"  Oh  the  studio !  — yes.     We  must  attend  to  that 


252  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

to-morrow,  immediately,"  said  Ostrander  lightly. 
He  was  thinking  about  the  bird  and  the  boys.  He 
began  at  once  to  tell  her  about  it.  Her  face  flushed 
with  a  divine  light.  Nothing  could  have  happened 
to  her  which  would  have  so  kindled  her  tender  eyes. 
If  the  sphinx,  standing  with  her  patient  face  to  the 
wall  in  the  closed  studi  >,  had  herself  put  on  the 
wings  of  immortality  that  summer  afternoon,  would 
the  woman  have  turned  her  proud  head  to  see  her 
fly? 

They  sat  down  side  by  side,  like  children,  in  the 
hammock.  Avis  touched  the  floor  with  the  tip  of  her 
slender  long  foot ;  she  lifted  her  arms  timidty,  and 
wound  his  hair  about  her  finger ;  they  looked  in  one 
another's  eyes  through  a  sweet  distance,  like  Cupid 
and  Psyche  through  the  dark.  . 

Philip  Ostrander  that  day  saw  his  future  as  the 
people  saw  the  face  of  Moses,  shining  so  as  it  must 
be  veiled.  They  had  been  four  months  married,  and 
his  wife  was  as  sacred  a  marvel  to  him  as  on  the  day 
when  he  first  touched  her  reluctant  hand.  Not  one 
charm  of  the  bud  was  missing  from  the  glory  of  the 
flower. 

Deeps  beyond  the  lowest  deeps  in  her  nature  were 
yet  unwon.  His  manhood  gathered  itself  to  be 
worthy  of  their  mastery.  He  felt  himself  to  have 
taken  a  supreme  Hen  upon  an  exhaustless  joy. 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  253 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

"  The  primal  duties  shine  aloft,  like  stars."  — THE  EXCURSION. 

"  TT'S  the  drain,  mem,  as  is  playin'  the  fool  on  me, 

1  bad  luck  to  it!" 

Mrs.  Ostrander's  third  "  girl "  —  the  third  that  is 
in  point  of  continuity,  not  in  cotemporaneity  —  met 
her  at  the  front-door  with  these  portentous  words. 
Mrs.  Ostrander,  radiant  from  an  hour  in  her  old 
studio  in  her  father's  orchard,  came  in,  shutting  out 
the  August  morning,  and  repeated  with  a  perplexity 
which  would  have  had  a  touch  of  the  superb  in  it, 
if  it  had  not  been  something  at  once  too  pitiful  and 
too  ludicrous,  — 

"The— drain?" 

"  The  kitchen-drain,  mem,  as  has  refused  entirely 
to  take  the  clane  tea-leaves  from  the  sink,  but  casts 
them  back  upon  me  hands,  the  vagabond  !  " 

' '  I  did  not  know  there  had  to  be  —  drains  in 
sinks,"  said  Mrs.  Ostrander  with  an  expression  of 
recoil,  "  I  never  examined  one.  Could  not  ours  be 
fixed  to  work  without?  What  must  we  do  about  it, 
Julia?" 

"  Yez  must  have  a  man  to  it,  mem,"  said  she  of 
Erin,  with  a  sweet  superior  smile. 

"  Very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Ostrander  with  a  sigh  of 


254  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

relief.  "We  will  send  for  a  carpenter  at  once. 
Mr.  Ostrander  shall  attend  to  it.  You  can  go  now, 
Julia.  Is  there  any  thing  more  you  wished  to  say  ?  " 

"  It's  the  chramy -tartar  I  am  lackin*  for  me  cake, 
mem  ;  and  the  butter  is  out  against  dinner :  but  that 
is  all,  mem,  barrin'  the  Union  for  the  pies,  and  the 
jelly-strainer,  as  they  slipped  me  mind  when  the 
grocer  come,  being  up  to  do  the  beds,  mem,  at 
the  time  ;  and  the  hole  in  the  pantry-windy  that  lets 
the  rain  upon  the  flooer-barrel,  as  yerself  complained 
of  the  mould  in  the  biscuit.  That's  all  I  think  of  at 
the  minute,  savin'  Mr.  Ostrander's  company." 

"  Mr.  Ostrander's  company?  "  blankly  from  Mrs. 
Ostrander. 

"  It's  meself  as  well-nigh  forgot  it  till  this  blissid 
minute,  on  account  of  ironiu'-day  and  the  breakfast 
so  late,  ye'll  own  yerself,  mem,"  penitentty  from 
Julia.  "But  it's  himself  as  left  word  wid  me  while 
yez  was  gone,  as  there  would  be  four  gentlemen  to 
dinner." 

"Have  we  —  I  suppose  we  have  dinner  enough 
in  the  house  for  four  gentlemen?"  asked  Avis  a 
little  nervously.  She  liked  Philip  to  feel  that  his 
friends  were  welcome  ;  and  she  had  thought,  with  a 
certain  scorn,  of  families  that  were  injured  by  the 
appearance  of  a  guest  on  ironing-da3T.  She  was 
sure  that  a  narrow  hospitality  must  indicate  either  a 
narrow  heart  or  a  dull  head.  Any  family  in  a 
university  Faculty  must,  of  course,  be  expected  to 
receive  largely  and  irregularly.  Avis  was  quite 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  255 

used  to  this.  But  she  had  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand why  aunt  Chloe  found  it  a  necessary  condition 
of  this  state  of  things,  to  make  the  puddings  herself. 
The  political  economy  of  any  intelligent  home  im- 
plied a  strict  division  of  labor,  upon  which  she  was 
perfectly  resolved  not  to  infringe.  A  harmonious 
home,  like  a  star  in  its  orbit,  should  move  of  itself. 
The  service  of  such  a  home  should  be  a  kind  of  blind 
intelligence,  like  a  natural  law,  set  in  motion,  to  be 
sure,  lay  a  designer,  but  competent  to  its  own  final 
cause.  Besides,  as  Philip  had  said,  she  had  not 
married  him  to  be  his  housekeeper. 

4 'It's  the  pound  and  half  of  steak  for  the  two 
of  you  we  has,"  observed  Julia  peacefully.  "An* 
the  butcher  had  gone  before  Mr.  Ostrander  let  on  a 
word  about  the  gintlemin ;  and  college  gintlemin, 
mem,  eats  mostly  awful." 

It  was  not  much,  perhaps,  to  set  herself  now  to 
conquer  this  little  occasion ;  not  much  to  descend 
from  the  sphinx  to  the  drain-pipe  at  one  fell  swoop  ; 
not  much  to  watch  the  potatoes  while  Juh'a  went  to 
market,  to  answer  the  door-bell  while  the  jelly  was 
straining,  to  dress  for  dinner  after  her  guests  were  in 
the  parlor,  to  resolve  to  engage  a  table-girl  to- 
morrow because  Julia  tripped  with  the  gravy,  to  sit 
wondering  how  the  ironing  was  to  get  done  while 
her  husband  talked  of  Greek  sculpture,  to  bring 
creation  out  of  chaos,  law  out  of  disorder,  and  a 
clear  head  out  of  wasted  nerves.  Life  is  composed 
of  such  little  strains ;  and  the  artistic  temperament 


256  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

is  only  more  sensitive  to,  but  can  never  hope  to 
escape  them.  It  was  not  much;  but  let  us  not 
forget  that  it  is  under  the  friction  of  such  atoms, 
that  women  far  simpler,  and  so,  for  that  yoke,  far 
stronger,  than  Avis,  have  yielded  their  lives  as  a 
burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne. 

That  one  day  wore  itself  to  an  end  at  last,  of 
course,  like  others  of  its  kin.  It  was  what  Avis  had 
already  learned  to  call  a  day  well  wasted.  She  was 
so  exhausted,  what  with  the  heat  of  the  weather  and 
the  jar  of  the  household  machinery,  that  she  scarcely 
noticed  her  husband,  when,  after  their  guests  had 
gone,  he  came  in  to  the  cool  darkness  of  the  parlor, 
and  threw  himself  in  the  chair  beside  her  to  say 
easily,  — 

"Tired,  Avis?" 

Everybody  knows  moments  when  to  be  asked  if 
one  is  tired  seems  in  itself  a  kind  of  insult,  and  to 
be  asked  in  that  tone,  an  unendurable  thing.  But 
it  was  not  in  A  vis's  poised  and  tender  temper  to 
drizzle  out  her  little  irritations  as  if  they  were  matters 
of  consequence .  And  her  husband' s  greater  physical 
delicacy  had  already  taught  the  six-months'  wife  the 
silence  of  her  own.  She  replied,  after  a  moment's 
pause,  that  she  should  soon  rest. 

"I  am  sorry  to  have  you  concerned  so  much  in 
this  domestic  flurry, ' '  began  Ostrander.  Avis  turned 
her  head  with  a  slight  contraction  of  the  brow.  To 
have  left  the  colors  without  the  drying-oil  upon  her 
easel,  and  surrendered  her  whole  summer's  day  to  the 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  257 

task  of  making  one  harmonious  fact  of  the  week's 
ironing  and  four  round,  red,  hungry  alumni,  and  then 
to  have  her  moderate,  but  at  least  gracious  and  orderly 
success  called  a  "flurry,  "was  one  of  those  little 
dulnesses  of  the  masculine  fancy  which  she  was 
loath  to  admit  in  Philip, — Philip,  whose  fine  per- 
ception, and  what  might  be  called  almost  a  tact  of 
the  imagination,  had  always  from  the  first  been  so 
winning  to  her. 

"It  must  not  be,"  proceeded  her  husband  with 
some  deepening  sincerity  in  his  affectionate  tones. 
"  We  must  have  better-trained  service  for  you." 

"We  must,  I  think, — I  have  been  thinking  it 
over  to-day, — have  more  service,"  replied  Avis. 
"  It  seemed  as  if  Julia  ought  to  take  care  of  two 
people.  And  there  are  your  college-debts  to  be  got 
off,  whatever  happens ;  but  I  cannot  think  it  right 
to  get  along  so  any  longer." 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  Ostrander  promptly :  "  you 
must  have  what  relief  you  need,  my  dear.  Do  not 
burden  yourself  to  worry  over  those  debts.  At 
most,  as  I  have  told  you,  three  thousand  would 
cover  the  whole,  and  a  part  of  that  is  already 
cleared." 

Avis  did  not  answer.  This  point  of  the  debts 
was  rather  a  sensitive  one  between  them.  Philip 
thought  he  had  explained  it  all  to  her  before  their 
marriage.  Avis  thought  he  had  not  made  it  quite 
clear.  Of  course  she  dimly  understood  that  he  had 
incurred  pecuniary  liabilities  for  his  education,  like 


258  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

other  young  men  in  America,  whose  belongings  and 
beginnings  were  unendowed..  But  her  way  would 
have  been  to  have  straightened  all  that  before  incur- 
ring the  risks  and  obligations  of  a  home.  Still, 
with  Philip's  good  salary,  and  her  own  little  income 
that  fell  to  her  from  her  mother,  —  and  surely  when 
she  herself  was  well  at  work,  —  there  need  be  no 
trouble  about  it.  And,  of  course,  if  Philip  thought 
he  explained  it  to  her,  he  must  have  done  so.  It 
was  she  who  had  been  dull.  She  argued  this  slight 
point  with  herself  sometimes  with  an  earnestness 
which  she  could  not  justify  to  herself,  without  a 
glance  at  some  far,  crouching  motive  set  deep  like  a 
sunken  danger  in  her  thought,  at  which  it  did  not 
seem  worth  while  to  look  scrutinizingly.  Any 
thought  of  her  husband  which  was  not  open  as  the 
mid-clay  to  her  heart  and  his,  was  beneath  the  re- 
spect of  attention.  Her  most  distinct  annoyance  in 
this,  and  other  little  points  which  might  occur  to  her, 
was,  perhaps,  the  first  baffling  consciousness  of  a 
woman,  that  there  may  be  laws  of  perspective  in 
her  husband's  nature  with  which  courtship  had  not 
made  her  clearly  acquainted. 

"It  will  all  come  right,"  said  Ostrander  in  a 
comfortable  tone,  turning  to  go.  "  And  now  I 
must  get  to  college,  or  I  shall  be  late."  He  looked 
back  across  the  long  parlor ;  the  closed  blinds  and 
dark  draper}?-  cast  a  moveless  green  shadow  upon 
Avis's  face,  that  made  her  look  pale  and  ill.  Os- 
trander came  bade.  He  had  not  reached  the  point 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  259 

of  conjugal  culture  at  which  a  man  can  go  happily 
away,  leaving  a  shade  upon  his  wife's  face.  He 
came  back,  and  said,  more  tenderly  than  a  husband 
who  has  been  six  months'  married  may  be  expected 
to  speak  upon  an  especially  busy  day, — 

"What  is  it,  love?" 

"Nothing  worth  getting  late  to  recitation  for, 
Philip. " 

"  You  tire  yourself  going  so  far  and  so  often  to 
your  father's.  We  must  build  you  a  studio  at  home, 
I  think."- 

"  I  do  not  get  to  father's  so  often  as  to  tire  my- 
self," said  Avis  with  a  slight  emphasis,  but  with 
a  brightening  brow.  ' '  But  indeed,  Philip,  I  begin  to 
be  a  little  impatient  for  my  regular  and  sustained 
work.  We  have  changed  girls  so  much  —  and  with 
all  the  Commencement  company  —  something  has 
continually  happened  to  embarrass  my  plans  so  far. 
But  do  not  look  troubled,  my  darling.  It  is  not  all 
worth  one  such  look  as  that." 

She  leaned  to  him  lovingly ;  she  was  comforted  by 
his  tenderness ;  she  blamed  herself  for  adding  one 
least  anxiety  of  her  own  to  his  crowded  cares.  When 
he  said  that  all  this  must  be  changed,  and  that  she 
at  least  should  not  be  exhausted  below  the  level  of 
her  work,  if  they  had  to  close  the  house,  and  board, 
her  heart  lightened  at  his  thoughtfulness.  Her  little 
difficulties  fused  like  rain-drops  into  a  golden  mist. 
She  was  sure  that  she  saw  her  way  through  them,  and 
beyond  them,  to  that  "  energy  of  days"  which  nature 


260  THR  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

had  made  imperative  to  her.  When  her  husband 
called  after  lecture,  and  asked  if  he  might  go  to  the 
studio  with  her,  and  see  what  she  was  doing,  her 
heart  lifted  as  it  did  when  they  two  stood  there  be- 
neath the  apple-boughs,  learning  love  and  surrender 
of  the  falling  blossoms,  now  so  long  ago.  She 
looked  her  future  in  the  face  with  aspiration  larger, 
because  deeper  than  her  maiden  days  had  known. 
With  love  as  with  God,  all  things  are  possible. 

Avis  had  that  day  retouched  the  sphinx.  She 
turned  the  easel,  and  she  and  her  husband  stood 
before  it  silently.  Against  a  deep  sky,  palpitant 
with  the  purple  soul  of  Egypt,  the  riddle  of  the  ages 
rose  with  a  certain  majesty  which  Ostrander  may  be 
excused  for  thinking  few  hands  could  have  wrought 
upon  it. 

Avis  had  commanded  with  consummate  skill  the 
tint  and  the  trouble  of  heat  in  the  tropical  air.  It 
was  mid-morning  with  the  sphinx.  The  lessening 
shadow  fell  westward  from  her  brow.  The  desert 
was  unmarked  by  foot  of  man  or  beast;  the  sky 
uncut  by  wing  of  bird.  The  child  of  their  union 
looked  across  them  to  the  east. 

"  Staring  straight  on  with  calm  eternal  eyes.'* 
The  sand  had  drifted  to  her  solemn  breast.  The 
lion's  feet  of  her  no  eye  can  see,  the  eagle's  wings 
of  her  are  bound  by  the  hands  of  unrelenting  years  ; 
only  her  mighty  face  remains  to  answer  what  the 
ages  have  demanded,  and  shall  forever  ask  of  her. 

Upon  this  face  Avis  had  spent  something  of  her 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  261 

best  strength.  The  crude  Nubian  features  she  had 
rechiselled,  the  mutilated  outline  she  had  restored ; 
the  soul  of  it  she  had  created. 

She  did  not  need  the  authority  of  Herodotus  to  tell 
her  that  the  face  of  the  sphinx,  in  ages  gone,  was 
full  of  beauty.  The  artist  would  have  said,  "  Who 
dared  to  doubt  it?" 

Yet  she  was  glad  to  have  wise  men  convinced  that 
this  giant  ideal  was  once  young  and  beautiful,  like 
any  other  woman.  If  there  were  a  touch  of  purely 
feminine  feeling  in  this,  it  was  of  a  sort  too  lofty  to 
excite  the  kind  of  smile  which  we  bestow  upon  most 
of  the  consciousness  of  sex  which  expresses  itself  in 
women. 

A  poet  of  our  own  time  has  articulated  the  speech 
of  one  phase  of  womanhood  to  one  type  of  manhood 
thus,  — 

"I  turn  from  you  my  cheeks  and  eyes, 

My  hair  which  you  shall  see  no  more. 
Alas  for  love  that  never  dies ! 
Alas  for  joy  that  went  before! 

Only  my  lips  still  turn  to  you, 

Only  my  lips  that  cry,  Repent." 

With  something  of  the  undertow  of  these  words 
Avis  was  at  this  time  struggling  in  the  making  of 
her  picture.  Grave  as  the  desert,  tender  as  the  sky, 
strong  as  the  silence,  the  parted  lips  of  the  myste- 
rious creature  seemed  to  speak  a  perfect  word.  Yet 
in  its  deep  eyes  flitted  an  expectant  look  that  did  not 
satisfy  her ;  meanings  were  in  them  which  she  had 


262  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

not  mastered  ;  questionings  troubled  them,  to  which 
her  imagination  had  found  no  controlling  reply. 

4 *  It  is  a  great  picture,"  said  her  husband  heartily, 
after  long  and  silent  study.  She  flushed  joyously. 
Just  then  she  would  rather  hear  these  words  from 
him  than  from  the  whole  round  world  besides. 

"I  am  not  satisfied  yet,"  she  said.  "The  eyes 
baffle  me,  Philip." 

"  They  ought  to  baffle  you ;  they  ought  to  forever : 
else  you  would  have  failed,"  he  answered.  "Let 
that  picture  go  now.  It  isn't  right  to  waste  it  on 
one  blessed,  unworthy  sort  of  fellow  like  me.  Let 
as  much  of  the  world  as  has  been  created  fit  to 
understand  you,  have  the  sphinx  at  once." 

1 '  I  cannot  be  understood  till  I  have  understood 
myself,"  said  his  wife  in  a  low  voice.  "  The  picture 
must  wait  —  now  —  a  while . ' ' 

"You  should  know  best;  but  I  hope  3'ou'll  not 
mistake  about  it,"  he  replied,  yielding  himself  to 
the  influence  of  the  picture,  with  only  a  superficial 
attention  to  her  words.  "That,  I  have  noticed,  is 
the  peril  of  thoroughly  trained  women.  Once  really 
fit  to  do  a  great  thing,  their  native  conscientiousness 
and  timidity  become,  I  sometimes  think,  a  heavier 
brake  upon  their  success  than  the  more  ignorant, 
and  therefore  more  abandoned  enthusiasm.  Why, 
in  reason,  should  the  sphinx  wait  any  longer?  " 

"  Not  in  reason  perhaps,  only  in  feeling ;  and  an 
artist  can  never  be  brusque  with  a  feeling.  The  pic- 
ture must  wait,  Philip  —  a  little  longer." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  263 

The  depth  of  her  tone  arrested  his  scrutiny ;  and 
the  eyes  which  she  lifted,  turning  from  the  solemn 
sphinx  to  him,  held  themselves  like  annunciation 
lilies  in  a  breaking  mist. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  Professor  Ostrander 
received  imperative  telegraphic  summons  to  his  old 
home  in  New  Hampshire.  His  mother  lay  very  ill. 
A  succession  of  those  little  distractions  incident  to 
young  people  who  have  just  yielded  themselves  to 
the  monopolizing  claim  of  their  own  home,  together 
with  the  brief  trip  to  the  scientific  convention  which 
Ostrander  had  taken  at  the  outset  of  the  vacation, 
had  delayed  their  longer  and  more  laborious  journey 
up  to  this  time.  Avis,  upon  the  reception  of  the 
message,  said  at  once  that  she  should  go  with  him. 
They  set  out  that  night,  oppressed  by  a  differing 
weight  of  feeling,  of  which  neither  cared  to  speak. 

They  found  themselves  in  the  face  of  a  calm,  in- 
evitable death,  which  seemed  rather  an  awe  to  the 
son,  and  an  anguish  to  the  daughter. 

Avis  trod  the  dreary  oil-cloth  of  the  narrow  stairs 
to  the  sick-room  with  an  acute  sense,  such  as  she  had 
never  known  before,  of  what  it  meant  to  live  and  die 
in  these  dumb  country  homes.  Poor,  narrow,  solitary 
home !  Poor,  plain,  old  mother,  watching  so  long 
for  the  son  who  had  not  come.  She  forced  herself 
to  remember  with  some  distinctness  how  imperative 
her  husband's  reasons  had  been  for  not  coming  be- 
fore. She  dismissed  the  neighbors  and  old  friends 
who  were  in  attendance,  and  herself,  having  sent 


264  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Philip  to  rest  within  sound  of  her  voice,  watched 
out  the  night  —  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  —  alone 
with  a  dying  face. 

She  found  it  a  reticent,  fine  face,  on  whose  gray 
solemnity  sat  a  strange  likeness  to  the  youth  and 
beauty  of  the  son.  Towards  morning,  when  Mrs. 
Ostrander,  stirring,  spoke,  she  bent,  and  kissed  her 
passionately. 

"  Thank  you,  dear,"  said  the  old  lady  with  a 
painless,  pleasant  smile. 

"  I  have  lived  without  a  mother,"  cried  Avis, 
headlong  with  regret  and  grief.  "I  am  so  glad  I 
am  not  too  late !  Now  you  kiss  me,  I  know  what  it 
is  like." 

"  Thank  you,  dear,"  came  the  answer  once  again 
quietly.  ' '  Is  Philip  here  ?  ' ' 

"  Oh,  yes  !     Shall  I  speak  to  him?  " 

"  No,  do  not  disturb  him,"  said  his  mother  in 
the  pathetic,  uncomplaining  tone  which  solitude  gives 
to  gracious  age.  "  I  would  not  break  the  poor  boy's 
nap.  And  I  like  to  see  you.  You  are  my  daughter, 
my  son  Philip's  wife.  You  made  the  portrait  for  me 
of  my  son.  It  was  kind  in  Philip  to  send  me  his 
portrait,  because  I  do  not  see  him  very  often.  You 
have  a  gentle  hand,  my  dear.  You  are  a  good 
daughter." 

"I  am  a  heart-broken  daughter!"  cried  Avis. 
"  Why  did  }^ou  not  send  for  us?  We  did  not  think 
—  did  not  know  —  Philip  did  not  understand  how 
feeble  a  summer  you  have  had .  I  can  see  how  it  has 
been.  You  did  not  tell  us !  " 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  265 

4  <  I  have  had  —  rather  —  a  feeble  summer  —  yes , ' ' 
Baid  the  sinking  woman  with  some  effort  of  speech  ; 
"  but  I  have  needed  nothing.  M}7  son  has  been 
always  a  good  son.  I  knew  he  would  come  when  he 
could.  I  did  not  want  to  trouble  him.  I  have  never 
lacked  for  any  thing.  Did  you  have  a  pretty  wed- 
ding, my  dear?"  Her  mind  seemed  to  slip  and 
wander  a  little  with  this  ;  for  she  spoke  of  Philip's 
father,  dead  now  these  twenty  years  ;  and  then  she 
called  to  him,  bidding  him  find  the  wedding-slippers 
in  the  bureau-drawer,  that  she  had  saved  for  her 
son's  wife ;  then  reiterating  that  Philip  had  been  a 
good  son,  and  she  had  wanted  nothing,  turned  to 
Avis  once  again,  to  say  apologetically,  — 

' '  They  had  got  so  yellow,  my  dear,  and  I  had  not 
seen  your  foot.  Philip  thought  they  would  not  fit, 
when  he  was  here,  and  I  showed  them  to  him.  I'm 
glad  you  had  a  pretty  wedding.  Philip  thought  it 
was  too  cold  for  me  to  go.  He  was  always  careful 
to  think  when  I  would  take  cold.  He  was  quite 
right.  But  I'm  glad  to  know  it  was  a  pretty  wed- 
ding. Raise  me  up,  my  dear,  and  let  me  look  at 
you  again." 

Avis  lifted  her  with  her  strong  young  arms  easily 
against  the  pillows,  and  the  two  turned  to  one 
another.  "  In  the  chill  before  the  dawning  "  some- 
thing seemed  to  stir  from  eye  to  eye  between  them, 
and  to  crawl  cold  about  the  heart  of  the  wife,  like  a 
thought  created  to  be  of  the  creeping  things  forever, 
to  which  rectitude  of  gait  and  outrightness  of  speech, 
were  forbidden. 


206  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Had  Philip — Philip,  whose  tenderness  was  like 
the  creation  of  a  uew  passion  in  the  world  —  some- 
how, somewhere,  in  some  indefined  sense,  neglected 
his  mother, — his  old  mother,  sick  and  alone?  It 
was  not  a  question  for  a  wife  to  ask :  it  was  not 
one  for  a  mother  to  answer.  Like  spirits,  the  two 
women  met  each  other's  eyes,  and  neither  spoke. 

Waitstill  Ostrander  (such  was  her  poetic,  Puri- 
tan name)  died  that  night.  Her  son  was  with  her, 
tender  and  sorrowful,  to  the  last.  But  a  little  be- 
fore the  stroke  of  midnight  she  turned  her  face,  and 
said,  — 

"  He  was  a  good  boy  —  he  was  always  a  good  son 
to  me.  I  never  lacked  for  any  thing.  Your  father 
will  be  pleased,  Philip  —  that  you  had  —  a  pretty 
wedding.  Now  I  want  —  my  daughter,  Avis. ' '  And 
in  Avis's  arms  and  on  Avis's  heart  she  drew  her 
last  uncomplaining  breath. 

Philip  and  Avis  were  together  after  the  funeral, 
drearily  busied  with  all  the  little  matters  about  the 
house  which  required  the  woman's  and  the  daughter's 
touch  before  they  left.  Avis  was  standing  reverent- 
ly before  an  open  bureau  in  their  mother's  room.  She 
had  just  lifted  from  their  old-fashioned  swathings  and 
scents  of  linen  and  lavender  those  sacred  yellow  satin 
shoes  which  had  never  ventured  to  the  pretty  wed- 
ding. Their  first  smooth,  suave  touch  upon  her  palm 
gave  her  something  almost  like  an  electric  shock.  To 
conceal  the  intensity  of  her  momentary  feeling,  of 
which  she  could  not  just  then  speak  to  her  husband, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  267 

she  laid  them  down,  and  began  to  talk  of  other 
things. 

"Philip,"  she  said,  "  there  was  a  woman,  —  a 
young  woman  in  gray,  I  think,  — who  cried  so  bitterly 
at  the  funeral,  that  she  attracted  my  attention.  Do 
yo  remember  ?  She  went  up  and  kissed  poor  mother 
on  the  forehead/  She  had  dark  eyes  ;  and  I  am  sure 
the  shawl  was  gray.  Do  you  know  who  it  was? " 

"  It  might  have  been  Jane  Gray,  or  Susan  Wana- 
maker,  possibly :  I  hardly  know.  Both  have  dark 
eyes,  and  both  were  neighbors  of  mother's/'  said 
Ostrander  thoughtfully.  "  Susan  Wanamaker  was 
always  very  fond  of  her,"  he  added  with  an  increas- 
ing interest.  "I  think  you  must  have  heard  me 
speak  of  Susan?" 

"  No,  I  do  not  remember  that  you  have." 

' '  I  did  not  have  a  suitable  chance  to  speak  to 
her,"  proceeded  Ostrander  :  "I  ought  to  have  done 
so.  It  was  an  old  friend.  All  the  neighbors  seem 
to  have  been  very  kind  to  mother."  Thus  he  chat- 
ted on,  to  divert  her,  of  indifferent  things.  Avis 
said  nothing  just  then  ;  but  presently  she  asked,  — 

"  Of  course  you  added  your  own  urgent  invitation, 
Philip,  to  mine,  that  mother  should  have  come  to 
our  wedding?  " 

"Why,  of  course,"  said  Ostrander.  "But  cer- 
tainty she  could  not  have  come.  The  weather  was 
far  too  cold,  and  I  really  don't  know  what  we  could 
have  done  with  her  exactly.  But  I  was  so  absorbed 
then,  my  darling,  that  I  am  afraid  I  don't  remember 
about  it  all  as  clearly  as  I  ought." 


268  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

In  truth  he  did  not ;  and  it  was  this  very  fact, 
perhaps,  that  Avis  brooded  over  with  the  most 
definite  discontent.  She  had  half  feared,  standing 
there  with  the  poor  little  old  wedding-shoe  in  her 
hand,  that  he  would  turn  to  her,  flashing  across  it, 
and  ask  her  if  she  thought  him  capable  of  a  slight 
to  his  mother.  That  he  had  not  even  perceived  that 
the  circumstances  were  suggestive  of  neglect  was 
in  itself  peculiarly  painful  to  her.  His  nature  had 
slipped  so  lightly  away  from  an  experience  under 
which  her  own  was  writhing,  that  she  felt  at  a  loss 
to  understand  him. 

She  folded  the  white  slipper  with  tender  fingers, 
to  take  it  home.  Perhaps  Philip  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  know  what  a  sacredness  it  would  have 
added  to  her  marriage-day  to  have  worn  it.  Perhaps 
no  man  could.  Perhaps  this  was  one  of  the  differ- 
ences, one  of  the  things  that  it  meant  to  be  a  man, 
not  to  understand  such  matters.  Gently  she  tried 
to  think  so.  But  she  stood  looking  across  the  slope 
of  the  near  church-yard  to  the  locked,  oppressive 
hills,  with  a  dull  pain  for  which  she  wished  she 
could  have  found  the  tears.  When  her  husband 
came  up,  and  laid  his  hand  upon  her  shoulder, 
stooping  to  see  what  she  saw,  she  pointed  to  the 
mountains,  and  said,  — 

u  How  lean  they  look  !  How  parched  !  And  she 
lived  —  shut  in  here  —  seventy  years." 

"Don't  grieve  so!"  said  Ostrander  tenderly. 
4 '  Poor  mother  would  never  have  been  happy  away 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  269 

from  them.     She  always  told  me  so  when  I  asked 
her." 

He  kissed  her,  and  went  down  stairs  to  see  about 
boxing  the  portrait  for  the  morning's  express. 


270  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

"Only  the  ey<>  of  God  can  see  the  universe  geometrically:  man,  In 
his  infirmity,  sees  only  foreshortenings.  Perspective  is,  so  to  say,  the 
ideal  of  visible  things.  .  .  .  As  man  advances  towards  his  horizon, 
his  horizon  retreats  from  him,  and  the  lines  that  seem  to  unite  in  the 
remote  distance,  remain  eternally  separate  in  their  eternal  convey- 
ance." 


point  at  which  love  ceases  to  be  per  se  an 
_L  occupation,  is  seldom  more  distinctly  defined 
than  the  line  which  divides  the  fire  of  the  sunset 
from  the  calm  of  the  upper  sky.  Avis'  s  love  for 
her  work  was  as  imperious  as  her  love  for  her  hus- 
band, and  as  loyally  stubborn  to  distraction. 

Said  one  of  the  greatest  women  of  this  age, 
11  Success  is  impossible,  unless  the  passion  for  art 
overcomes  all  desultory  passions."  Avis  found  her- 
self, by  dimly  shaded  gradations,  approaching  a  con- 
dition of  serious  unrest.  She  was  like  a  creature 
in  whom  two  gods  warred.  Her  nature  bent,  but 
could  not  break,  under  the  divine  conflict.  Yet  at 
this  time  she  looked  across  it  with  firm,  clear  e3Tes. 
All  would  come  right.  These  little  household  obsta- 
cles, experience  would  disperse.  They  loved  each 
other,  —  what  could  she  fear  ? 

The  winter  passed  dreamily.  When  her  husband 
came  home  on  the  bitter  nights,  her  eyes  turned  to 
him  full  of  a  trust  as  unreflective  and  as  much  in 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  271 

the  nature  of  things,  it  then  seemed,  as  the  trust  of 
the  lily  in  the  summer  wind.  He  liked  best  to  find 
her  in  the  dark,  opaque  reds  of  their  little  parlor, 
and  in  the  mood  of  the  open  fire.  She  sat  with  her 
books  or  her  sketching,  or  in  the  shadow  at  the  soft 
piano.  The  usual  little  feminine  bustle  of  sewing 
he  missed  without  regret.  Women  fretted  him  with 
their  eternal  nervous  stitch,  stitching,  and  fathomless 
researches  into  the  nature  of  tatting  and  crochet. 
He  rather  admired  his  wife  for  sharing  so  fully  his 
objection  to  them.  Avis  was  that  rare  woman  who 
had  never  embroidered  a  tidy  in  her  life. 

"It  is  as  much  of  an  exhaustion  of  the  nervous 
centres  to  my  wife  to  sew  as  it  would  be  to  me,"  he 
used  say  at  this  time,  "  and  as  much,  if  not  more, 
of  a  nervous  waste.  She  shall  not  do  it." 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  —  how  should  it  ?  —  that 
Avis's  exemption  from  this  burden  was  a  matter 
requiring  any  forethought  or  management ;  and  he 
expressed  surprise  on  learning,  by  accident  one  day, 
that  the  price  of  two  portraits  which  she  had  paint- 
ed —  her  only  finished  work  —  that  winter,  had 
gone  to  cover  the  seamstress's  bills.  Avis  did  not 
chatter  about  such  things.  She  had  a  fine  power  of 
selection  in  her  conversation  (has  not  some  one  well 
said  that  conversation  is  always  but  a  selection?) 
which  he  admired. 

Certain  moods  befell  her  that  winter,  from  which 
he  stood  afar  off.  Sometimes,  when  the  wild  weather 
deterred  her  from  the  brisk  walks  which  her  sturdy, 


272  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

out-of-door  habits  had  made  a  necessity  to  her,  he 
found  her  pacing  the  house,  up  and  down,  from 
attic  to  cellar,  in  a  fitful,  and  what,  in  a  woman  of 
less  self-control,  would  have  been  a  fretful  way.  He 
spoke  to  her,  and  received  courteous  but  uncommu- 
nicative answers.  Her  eyes  had  become  two  beat- 
ing rebels,  for  whom  his  tenderest  thought  could  find 
no  amnesty.  Usually,  at  such  times,  she  retreated  to 
the  studio  (which  was  now  established,  in  a  manner, 
in  the  attic) ,  and  worked  fiercely  till  the  early  winter 
dark  dropped  down.  Then  he  would  come  up  and 
call  her,  unless  he  were  too  busy.  If  he  came,  he 
found  her  gentle  and  calm.  She  leaned  upon  his 
arm  as  they  went  down  stairs. 

Avis  left  the  unfinished  sketch  or  painting  pa- 
tiently. She  said,  "  By  and  by.  After  a  while.  I 
must  wait  a  little."  She  was  still  able  to  allure 
herself  with  the  melody  of  this  refrain,  to  which  so 
many  hundreds  of  women's  lips  have  shaped  them- 
selves trembling  ;  while  the  ears  of  a  departing  hope 
or  a  struggling  purpose  were  bent  to  hear.  Life 
had  become  a  succession  of  expectancies.  In  each 
experience  she  waited  for  her  foothold  upon  another, 
before  finding  her  poise.  There  is  more  than  a 
fanciful  symbolism  in  the  law  which  regulates  the 
drawing  of  the  human  form.  We  must  be  able  to 
take  a  straight  line  from  the  head  to  the  feet,  or  our 
picture  topples  over. 

Women  understand  —  only  women  altogether  — 
what  a  dreary  will-o-the-wisp  is  this  old,  common, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  273 

I  had  almost  said  commonplace,  experience,  "  When 
the  fall  sewing  is  done,"  "When  the  baby  can 
walk,"  "  When  house-cleaning  is  over,"  "  When  the 
company  has  gone,"  "When  we  have  got  through 
with  the  whooping-cough,"  "When  I  am  a  little 
stronger,"  then  I  will  write  the  poem,  or  learn  the 
language,  or  study  the  great  charity,  or  master  the 
symphony ;  then  I  will  act,  dare,  dream,  become. 
Merciful  is  the  fate  that  hides  from  any  soul  the 
prophecy  of  its  still-born  aspirations. 

The  winter  was  over.  In  the  elm-tree  outside  of 
Avis' s  chamber- window  a  robin  was  building  a  nest, 
with  an  eye  that  withdrew  itself  like  a  happy  secret. 
Avis  watched  the  bird  with  a  blind  sympathy.  She 
held  out  her  hand,  and  the  little  creature  ate  from  it 
after  a  decorous  hesitation.  She  felt  a  lowly  kinship 
with  the  brooding,  patient  thing. 

In  May  her  baby  was  born,  —  a  son.  Avis  was  a 
little  sorry  for  this,  but  she  did  not  like  to  say  so :  it 
seemed  a  rude  disloyalty  to  the  poor  little  fellow. 
But  when  his  father  asked  her  if  she  were  not  con- 
tent, she  said, — 

"  If  I  had  a  daughter,  I  should  fall  down  and  wor- 
ship her." 

It  was  a  delicate,  ailing  baby,  and  seemed  at  first 
a  mere  little  ganglion  of  quivering  nerves.  It  cried 
a  great  deal. 

"  I  don't  see  what  the  child  has  to  cry  for !  "  said 
Avis,  looking  a  little  offended. 

The  baby's  grandfather  was  there  the  day  that  she 


274  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

said  this.  He  put  on  his  spectacles  at  the  precise 
angle  and  with  the  peculiar  rub  which  he  reserved  for 
a  pet  philosophical  problem,  and  with  a  lordly  rever- 
ence took  the  child's  fingers  —  poor  little  sprawling 
antennae  —  upon  his  own. 

"What  Aristotle  and  Leibnitz  and  Kant,"  he 
said  loftily,  "  would  have  yielded  their  lives  to  know, 
you  ask,  Avis,  over-lightly.  Philosophy  will  be  no 
longer  a  fragment,  but  a  system,  when  it  has  com- 
manded the  psychological  process  by  which  one  infant 
is  led  to  weep." 

Aristotle  might  have  had  a  chance  to  find  out,  Avis 
thought,  if  he  could  have  had  the  pleasure  of  study- 
ing her  child  for  the  first  three  weeks  of  its  life.  But 
the  professor  watched  the  child  gravely.  He  had  a 
deep  respect  for  a  being  who  could  baffle  Aristotle. 

"  That  baby  has  cried  ever  since  it  was  born !  " 
Avis  wailed  one  night,  exhausted  with  sleeplessness. 
"  I  wish  somebody  would  take  it  out  of  my  sight 
and  hearing  for  a  while." 

"Why,  Avis,"  said  her  husband,  "don't  you 
care  —  don't  you  feel  any  maternal  affection  for  the 
little  thing?" 

"No,"  cried  every  quivering  nerve  in  the  honest 
young  mother  ;  "  not  a  bit !  " 

Perhaps,  indeed,  she  was  lacking  in  what  is  called 
the  maternal  passion  as  distinct  from  the  maternal 
devotion.  She  was  perfectly  conscious  of  being 
obliged  to  learn  to  love  her  l>aiby  like  anybody  else  ; 
really  g.he  did  not  find  the  qualities  which  that 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  275 

unfortunate  young  gentleman  developed  during  the 
early  part  of  his  existence,  those  which  she  was 
wont  to  consider  lovable  in  more  mature  characters. 
She  felt  half  ashamed  of  herself  for  being  the 
mother  of  so  cross  a  baby.  She  had  supposed  that 
children  were  gifted  by  their  Creator  with  some 
measure  of  respect  for  the  feelings  of  others.  This 
child  seemed  to  be  as  deficient  in  it  as  a  young 
batrachian.  It  mortified  her,  like  an  evidence  of 
ill-breeding.  Avis  had  never  lived  in  the  house 
with  a  baby ;  neither  had  Ostrander.  Their  vague 
ideas  of  the  main  characteristics  of  infancy  were 
drawn  as,  I  think  I  may  safely  say,  those  of  most 
young  men  and  women  are  at  the  time  of  mar- 
riage, chiefly  from  novels  and  romances,  in  which 
parentage  is  represented  as  a  blindly  deifjing  privi- 
lege, which  it  were  an  irreverence  to  associate  with 
teething,  the  midnight  colic,  or  an  insufficient  in- 
come. 

Avis  herself  had  not  escaped  the  influence  of 
these  golden,  if  a  little  hazy  pictures.  While  she 
knew,  or  supposed  that  she  felt,  many  things  not 
expected  of  her,  and  failed  to  feel  others  which  it 
was  proper  to  feel  under  the  conditions  of  maternity, 
yet  she  cherished  in  her  own  way  her  own  ideals. 
But  of  these  she  did  not  talk,  even  to  her  husband. 
These  it  was  only  for  her  child  and  herself  to  under- 
stand. Over  these,  as  over  her  wedded  fancy,  Na- 
ture drew  a  veil  like  those  casement  screens,  which 
to  the  beholder  are  dense  and  opaque,  but  to  the 


276  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

eye  behind  them  glitter  with  a  fair  transparency 
through  which  all  the  world  is  seen  divinely  new. 
And  then  motherhood  was  a  fact  which  had  never 
entered  (as  in  the  case  of  most  women)  upon  her 
plans  or  visions  of  h'fe.  It  was  to  be  learned  like 
any  other  unexpected  lesson. 

But  the  spring  was  budding ;  and  in  the  robins' 
nest  at  the  window  the  fledglings  chirped ;  and  the 
tender  air  stole  in  on  tiptoe  ;  and  her  strength  waxed 
with  the  leaping  weather ;  and  God  made  people  to 
love  their  children :  so  it  must  all  be  well.  The 
kind  of  dumb  terror  with  which  she  had  lain  listen- 
ing to  the  child's  cry  gave  place  to  a  calm  exult- 
ance.  Now,  in  a  fortnight,  in  a  week,  in  days, 
to-morrow,  she  could  be  at  work. 

To  be  sure  the  baby  was  a  fact;  but  he  was 
matched  by  another,  — the  nurse :  from  so  fair  an 
equation  it  was  not  too  much  to  expect  a  clear  solu- 
tion. 

She  came  out  into  the  sunshine  with  bounding 
heart.  The  soul  of  the  spring  was  in  her.  Her 
most  overpowering  consciousness  was  one  of  deep 
religious  fervor.  She  thanked  God  that  her  life's 
purpose,  for  which  she  believed  He  had  created  her, 
would  be  more  opulently  fulfilled  by  this  experience. 
The  baby  would  teach  her  new  words  to  tell  the  world, 
—  His  sa'd,  wrong  world  that  the  birth  of  a  little 
child  had  saved.  She  felt  a  deepening  respect  for 
the  baby.  She  kissed  him  fervently.  It  seemed 
singularly  obtuse  in  him  to  double  up  his  seriously 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  277 

inartistic  fist,  and  put  her  eye  out  with  blind  and 
smarting  tears. 

"  I  hope  you  like  him,  Avis,"  said  Coy  a  little 
doubtfully,  one  day  in  June.  He  was  so  pre-emi- 
nently uninteresting  compared  with  her  baby,  that 
she  really  felt  some  uncertainty  on  the  nature  of 
Avis's  feelings  ;  and  then  Avis  said  so  little  ! 

u  Certainly,"  said  Avis,  looking  up  rather  wearily 
from  the  week's  wash  which  she  was  sorting,  —  a 
snowdrift  fatally  deepened  by  all  these  little  gar- 
ments whose  name  and  nature  were  still  a  mystery  to 
her,  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  produced  more  a 
sense  of  irritation  than  of  poetry  on  her  fancy,  since 
she  did  not  see  that  her  love  for  her  son  required 
that  she  should  know  whether  the  scallop  on  his 
flannel  petticoat  was  ironed  the  wrong  way,  —  "  cer- 
tainly I  like  him  ;  but  I  don't  understand  why,  when 
he  is  put  on  the  bed,  he  doesn't  go  to  sleep.  It  is 
very  inconvenient,  —  crying  so,  when  it  is  proper  for 
him  to  take  a  nap.  Why,"  said  Avis,  lifting  her 
grave  eyes,  "  I  find  him  a  great  deal  of  trouble!  " 

Coy,  who  thought  it  quite  in  the  order  of  things 
that  her  baby  should  be  three  months  the  older,  since 
naturally  Avis  couldn't  get  on  (she  never  had)  in 
any  real  thing  that  had  got  to  be  done  without  her 
advisory  council,  —  Coy  gasped,  and  felt  it  useless 
to  remonstrate  that  morning,  even  about  the  little 
shirts  which  poor  Avis  was  understood  to  have 
trusted  the  nurse  to  sew. 

We  hear  and  think  much  of  the  marked  days  of 


278  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

life,  the  signal-stations  of  gloom  or  gladness,  the 
wedding,  the  birth,  the  burial,  the  da}'  that  lent  its 
ear  like  a  priest  to  love's  first  confession.  One  may 
dare  assert  that  among  these 

"  Days  which  quiver  to  their  roots 
Whene'er  you  stir  the  dust  of  such  a  day," 

there  strikes  in  the  lives  of  most  of  us  one  deeper 
than  they  all, — that  day  when  we  heard  the  first  bit- 
ter word  from  lips  which  would  once  have  breathed 
their  last  to  win  our  kisses.  Do  you  not  remember 
how  the  sun  struck  out  the  figure  in  the  carpet? 
The  refrain  of  the  bird  that  flew  singing  past  the 
window  ?  What  the  pattern  of  the  sofa-cushion  was 
on  which  you  sat  gazing  ?  How  the  Parian  Venus 
tumbled  from  the  bracket,  when,  going  out,  he 
slammed  the  door?  How  she  swept  away  to  the 
piano,  and  the  little  polka  that  she  played  with  bent 
head  to  hide  the  tears?  You  turned  that  carpet,  you 
covered  the  cushion  long  ago,  for  economy's  sake, 
you  thought.  Ah,  me  !  It  must  have  been  for  econo- 
my, too,  that  the  broken  Venus  was  never  mended, 
but  lies  hidden  in  your  bureau-drawer ;  and  let  me 
hear  you  play  that  little  polka  if  you  dare  ! 

Avis's  baby  selected  one  July  night,  when  the 
thermometer  stood  at  ninety  degrees  in  the  heart  of 
the  little  town,  to  cry,  with  a  perseverance  worthy  of 
so  noble  a  cause,  from  nine  o'clock  in  the  stifling 
night  till  three  in  the  exhausted  dawn,  doubtless  for 
reasons  which  were  metaphj'sically  satisfactory  to 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  279 

himself.  Philip  Ostrander,  not  finding  in  them  any 
distinct  bearings  upon  the  natural  sciences,  was,  as 
might  be  expected,  less  of  an  enthusiast  in  the  mat- 
ter. He  took  his  pillow,  and  vacated  the  scene  of 
action.  He  had  some  time  since  reached  the  stage 
at  which  a  man  first  perceives  the  full  value  and  final 
cause  of  the  "spare  room," — an  institution  not 
created,  as  we  have  crudely  supposed,  for  a  chance 
guest,  but  for  the  relief  of  the  father  whose  morn- 
ing duties  clearly  require  a  full  night's  rest.  It  cer- 
tainly was  plain  enough  that  Mr.  Ostrander  could 
not  conduct  the  morning  recitation  if  he  had  been 
kept  awake  all  night ;  and  his  weak  lung  forbade  his 
carrying  the  baby,  Avis  said. 

The  poor  girl  wore  that  terrible  July  out  as  best 
she  might,  in  the  deepening  reserve  which  mother- 
hood only  of  all  forms  of  human  solitude  knows. 

On  this  particular  morning  she  came  down  late 
and  wan.  The  fierce,  free  fire  of  her  superb  eyes 
had  given  way  to  the  burnt-in  look  of  anxious  pa- 
tience, which  marks  a  3'oung  mother  out  from  all 
..other  young  creatures  in  the  world.  Her  husband 
sat  with  a  disturbed  face  at  a  disorderly  table. 

"  Avis,"  he  began,  without  looking  up  to  see  how 
she  was,  "  the  cracked  wheat  is  soggy  again." 

Avis  for  a  moment  made  no  icply :  she  could  not 
for  sheer  surprise.  The  husband's  tone,  breaking  in 
upon  her  exhaustion  of  mind  and  body,  gave  her 
something  of  the  little  shock  that  we  feel  on  finding 
our  paper  give  out  in  the  middle  of  an  absorbing 


280  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

sentence.  When  she  spoke,  she  said  gently,  but 
with  some  dignity,  — 

"  I  am  sorry,  Philip  :  I  will  speak  about  it." 

"And  the  cream,"  proceeded  Philip,  "is  sour. 
The  steak  was  cold ;  and  the  coffee  will  give  me  a 
bilious  headache  before  night.  I  really  don't  see 
why  we  can't  have  things  more  comfortable." 

"  We  certainly  must,  if  they  are  so  very  uncom- 
fortable," replied  his  wife  with  rather  a  pale  smile, 
striving,  she  could  hardly  have  told  why,  to  turn  the 
discussion  into  a  jest.  "  But  you  remember  you 
didn't  marry  me  to  be  your  housekeeper,  Philip  ! " 

Philip  Ostrander  pushed  his  chair  back  without  a 
smile,  folded  his  napkin  with  the  peculiar  masculine 
emphasis  which  says,  I  can  hold  my  tongue,  for  I 
am  a  gentleman ;  but  it  is  doggedly  hard  work ! 
Then  turning,  with  averted  face  murmured  through 
his  closed  teeth, — 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  I  don't  know  what  we  were 
either  of  us  thinking  of!  " 

With  this  he  took  his  hat  and  strode  away  to  col- 
lege, in  the  sacred  summer  light,  to  conduct  the 
morning  prayers  of  a  thousand  perceptive  and  re- 
ceptive boys. 

Avis  sat  for  a  little  while  at  the  uninviting  break- 
fast-table ;  she  tasted  the  cold  coffee,  and  sent  Julia 
away  with  her  sympathetic  if  a  little  bitter  tea :  she 
felt  too  weak  to  eat.  She  looked  out  into  the  elm- 
branch,  and  saw  the  empty  nest  which  the  May  robin 
had  left,  and  dimly  thought  what  an  unpleasant 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  281 

look  it  had,  and  dimly  thought  she  would  get  Julia 
to  pull  'it  down.  It  seemed  quite  necessary  not  to 
think  of  any  thing  except  the  nest.  Her  eyes 
burned  feverishly.  She  threw  herself  upon  the 
lounge,  and  lay  with  both  hands  pressed  upon  them, 
still  as  the  coins  that  press  the  lids  of  the  dead. 
Presently  she  rang  the  bell  sharply,  and  in  a  strung, 
strained  voice  bade  that  the  nurse  be  ordered  to 
bring  the  child. 

He  came,  poor  little  fellow  !  looking  as  wan  as  his 
mother,  but  as  innocent  of  having  made  himself  an 
unpleasant  fact  in  the  family  life  as  a  tuberose  is 
of  yielding  too  strong  a  sweetness.  Avis  caught 
him  with  something  not  unlike  the  passionate  love 
which  Arria  may  have  felt  for  the  dagger,  and  hid 
her  broken  face  upon  the  baby's  neck,  as  if  she 
would  have  hidden  it  there  forever  from  all  the 
world. 

When  Ostrander  came  home,  he  sought  his  wife 
ah1  over  the  house.  She  was  not  to  be  found.  The 
cook  said  she  took  her  hat  and  went  out  an  hour 
since ;  and  the  nurse  explained,  that  in  throwing 
back  the  nursery  blinds  to  give  the  important  mes- 
sage which  the  cook  had  forgotten  to  deliver  to  the 
grocer's  boy,  she  had  thought  it  likely  it  was  Mrs. 
Ostrander  as  she  saw  just  bej'ond  the  top  of  the 
cart,  turning  Elm  Street  to  the  beach.  . 

Ostrander  pursued  her  impatiently  in  the  blazing 
sun.  He  perceived  the  flutter  of  her  dress  far  down 
against  the  light-house ;  and,  when  he  had  over- 


282  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

taken  her,  he  found  her  creeping  along  in  the  shadow 
formed  by  that  great  gorge  so  memorable  to  them 
both.  She  did  not  see  him  or  hear  him,  and  so 
crawled  along  in  an  aimless,  dreary  fashion  which  it 
gave  him  a  nameless  terror  to  see. 

Her  figure  looked  so  broken,  so  beaten,  and  weak, 
that  it  for  the  first  time  occurred  to  him  that  the 
effect  of  a  little  conjugal  quarrel  upon  a  nature  like 
that  of  his  wife's  was  not  altogether  a  calculable 
one.  His  own  words  once  spoken  in  that  spot  came 
back  to  him  as  he  made  his  penitent  way  along  the 
purple  gorge,  looking  from  torn  side  to  torn  side. 

"  It  was  a  perfect  primeval  marriage.  The  heart 
of  the  rock  was  simpty  broken." 

Had  Avis  wrought  herself  into  that  frenzy  of 
wounded  feeling  in  which  weaker  women  have 
courted  death,  as  a  man  with  lacerated  spinal  nerves 
courts  the  moxa?  He  overtook  her  without  her 
hearing  his  light  step,  and,  man-like,  trusting  to  the 
sensation  to  interpret  the  emotion,  barricaded  her 
with  both  arms,  and  folded  her  to  his  shamed  and 
sorry  heart.  But  Avis  glided  from  his  touch  like  a 
spirit.  Her  bent  figure  heightened  grandly,  and  her 
unwon  maiden  C3~es  seemed  to  look  again  from  a 
great  height,  down  upon  him  where  she  had  swept 
and  stood  upon  the  jutting  cliff. 

Ostrandcr  at  that  moment  felt  that  to  have  been 
permitted  to  gain  the  allegiance  of  the  heart  we  love, 
is  but  the  most  tentative  and  introductory  step  to- 
wards the  durability  of  a  happiness  whose  existence 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  283 

depends  upon  our  being  found  worthy  to  retain  what 
we  have  won  ;  and  in  feeling  this  he  felt  deeper  than 
he  could  reason  into  the  joy  and  pain  and  peril  which 
weld  two  individual  human  souls  into  the  awful 
fusion  which  we  call  marriage. 

But  he  said  only,  — 

"Avis,  I  was  a  brute  ! " 

"  No,"  she  said  bitterly,  "  you  were  only  a  man." 
Then  repenting,  with  swift  nobility  she  came  to 
him, — 

"Now  it  is  I  who  am  wrong.  Forgive  me, 
Philip!" 

"  You?" 

He  gathered  her  tenderly.  She  did  not  repel  him : 
she  was  worn  out  with  the  strain  of  the  night  and 
the  glare  of  the  long  walk.  She  did  not  cry ;  but 
she  lay  in  his  arms  with  a  dry,  sobbing  sigh  which 
alarmed  him.  He  caressed  her  passionately.  He 
sought  her  pardon  in  the  soul  of  every  sweet  sign 
love  had  taught  him  in  its  first  dizzy  hours.  She 
submitted  quietly,  but  with  an  unresponsiveness 
which  afterwards  he  remembered  with  disquiet  per- 
plexity. 

The  scar  which  an  unkind  word  leaves  upon  a 
large  love,  may  be  invisible,  like  that  of  a  great  sin 
upon  the  tissues  of  the  repentant  soul ;  but  for  one 
as  for  the  other,  this  life  has  no  healing. 

Avis  did  not  choose  to  talk  about  cracked  wheat. 
There  were  other  things  in  the  world  to  say.  And 
it  was  impossible  to  express,  without  giving  them 


284  TpE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

both  useless  pain,  her  inherent,  ineradicable,  and 
sickening  recoil  from  the  details  of  household  care. 
And  Philip,  distraught  with  his  deepening  respon- 
sibilities at  the  college,  naturally  ceased  to  inquire 
so  often  how  matters  went  in  the  studio.  Avis 
faced  her  circumstances  with  such  patience  as  she 
could  command.  A  weaker  woman  lets  conditions 
override  her,  be  the  lash  a  divine  frenzy  or  a 
chronic  neuralgia.  Avis  sadly  turned  the  tense 
muscle  of  her  strong  nature  now  to  secure  a 
gracious  home.  The  thong  which  has  stung  the  as- 
pirations of  all  women,  since  Eve,  for  love  of  knowl- 
edge, ate  and  sinned,  goaded  her  on.  She  said  to 
herself,  "It  will  be  a  matter,  at  most,  of  a  few 
months.  When  I  have  mastered  this  one  little 
house,  life  waits;  and  art  is  long."  She  made 
haste  to  be  wise  in  wisdom  that  her  soul  loathed,  to 
clear  the  space  about  her  for  the  leisure  that  her 
patient  purpose  craved.  But  sometimes,  sitting  bur- 
dened writh  the  child  upon  her  arms,  she  looked  out 
and  off  upon  the  summer  sky  with  a  strangling  deso- 
lation like  that  of  the  forgotten  diver,  who  sees  the 
clouds  flit,  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  285 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

"It  is  the  low  man  thinks  the  woman  low."— TENNYSON. 

"  Thou  hast  met,  found,  and  seized  me,  and  know'st  what  my  ways 

are. 

Hold  ME,  —hold  a  shadow,  the  wings  as  they  quiver, 
Hold  ME,  —  hold  a  dream,  smoke,  a  track  on  the  river ! " 

THEODOKE  PRODONTTS. 

JOHN  ROSE  was  one  of  those  people  to  whom 
one  may  surrender  a  confidence,  and  never  re- 
pent it;  this  is  to  say,  John  Rose  had  a  rare 
nature,  and  therefore  one  which  educated  him  for 
the  peculiar  draughts  upon  delicacy  of  organization 
involved  in  the  calling  of  a  Christian  preacher. 

At  the  outset  of  his  work  in  Harmouth  he  had 
adopted  a  plan  never,  to  my  knowledge,  put  in  use 
by  a  pastor  in  precisely  this  form,  in  more  than  one 
other  instance.  Doubtless  there  are  others  unknown 
to  me. 

The  experiment  resulted  from  a  chance  word  of 
his  wife's.  Coy,  with  the  grasping  capacity  for  self- 
exhaustion  characteristic  of  the  New-England  girl, 
had  married  the  profession  with  the  man.  She 
always  said,  "  Our  work,"  "  Our  people,"  "  Our 
pulpit,"  and  "  Our  salary."  She  flew  from  the 
nursery  to  the  prayer-meeting,  from  the  mission- 
school  to  the  Commencement  dinner,  from  the 


286  TEtE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

church  fair  to  the  Italian  class ;  young  married 
ladies  losing  caste  in  Harmouth,  if  they  do  not  main- 
tain a  palpable  connection  with  that  sad,  forsaken 
world  which  has  no  baby,  poor  thing !  to  interfere 
with  its  course  of  reading. 

Coy,  who  had  never  been  considered  "  religious  " 
before  her  marriage,  and  who  sorely  felt  her  lack  of 
clear  theological  acumen,  said  one  day,  — 

"  John,  a  minister's  business  is  precisely — what? 
When  we  talk  about  saving  people,  we  mean 
exactly"  — 

"  I  don't  answer  conundrums  for  any  other 
minister,"  said  the  Reverend  John,  thoughtfully 
calculating  the  distance  from  hand  to  eye  between 
the  baby's  head  and  the  ceiling,  as  he  stood  playing 
his  after-dinner  game  of  human  pitch-penny  with 
that  remarkable  infant ;  ' '  but  I  consider  my  business 
a  very  simple  affair.  The  human  animal  seems  to 
have  been  (for  what  inscrutable  purpose,  you  3'oung 
porpoise,  I'll  not  attempt  to  say,  and  you'll  never 
grow  up  to  prove,  if  you  jerk  yourself  over  my  lame 
shoulder  like  that)  endowed  with  what  we  find  it 
convenient  to  call,  for  lack  of  a  better  term,  an 
immortal  soul." 

"  John !  "  said  wife,  in  the  tone  she  used  at  tea, 
treading  on  his  toes  under  the  table  when  he  pro- 
pounded some  doctrine  that  savored  of  laxity,  with  a 
conservative  supply  spending  the  Sunday. 

"  What's  the  matter  now  ?  "  asked  John,  giving  the 
baby  a  double  twist  that  the  offspring  of  any  less 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  287 

muscular  Christianity  would  have  resented.     "  Have 
I  said  any  thing  heretical  again. to-day?" 

"I  —  th-think  —  not.  It  sounds  right  on  the 
whole,"  said  Coy  anxiously;  "  but  I  never  know 
where  you'll  turn  up,  John.  An  immortal  soul  is  all 
right,  so  far  as  it  goes,  of  course,  John  dear.  But 
the  trouble  I  have  with  theology  is,  I  never  know 
what  is  coming  next.  And  your  theology  especially, 
somehow,  John,. is — you  know  —  I  like  to  have  you 
make  it  very  plain,  because  the  baby  is  usually  mixed 
up  in  it  a  little  (there  !  you'll  bump  her  head  !  )  or 
else,  you  see  —  I  find  it  hard  to  fix  my  mind  when  I'm 
being  kissed.  If  I'd  been  intellectual,  like  Avis,  I 
suppose  I  shouldn't  mind.  Certainly  it  is  quite  true- 
about  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  But  old  Mrs. 
Bobley  —  you  know  the  old  lady  behind  the  last 
pillar,  who  always  cries  in  the  wrong  place,  with  the 
ironed  purple  strings  to  her  bonnet  —  asked  me  yes- 
terday what  I  thought  were  jour  views  as  to  the 
precise  nature  of  the  ministerial  vocation.  I  told 
her  I'd  ask.  She  said  she  hoped  you  realized,  for 
you  were  so  very  young,  the  awful  responsibility 
which  rested  on  a  minister  if  a  single  soul  in  his 
congregation  had  never  been  worried  —  no,  never 
been  warned,  that  was  it  —  by  his  pastor.  I  said  I 
supposed  so.  And  then  she  asked  me  if  I  knew  a 
good  recipe  for  Parker-house  rolls.  But  now,  John 
dear,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  think  a  minister  is.  He's  a 
kind  of  a  doctor,  John,  don't  you  see  ? — a  soul-doctor. 
I  don't  pretend  to  understand  about  sin  (I  suppose 


288  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

that's  because  I've  never  associated  with  wicked  peo- 
ple) ;  but  it  seems  to  me  like  an  awful  disease,  — • 
like  scarlet-fever.  People's  souls  are  sick — sick^- 
sick  all  about  us,  John.  And  if  you  can  cure  them, 
you  know"  — 

"  Amen  !  "  said  John  gravely. 

u  Or  if  you  can  only  ease  them  a  little  ' '  — 

"  Amen  !  "  said  John  again. 

"  Of  course  I  don't  mean  quite  by  yourself — un- 
less Anybody  —  greater  —  were  behind,"  said  Coy 
quickly,  slipping  with  the  characteristic  reticence  of 
the  atmosphere  in  which  she  had  been  bred,  from  ex- 
plicit expression  of  the  more  vital  elements  of  reli- 
gious feeling.  "  But  I've  been  thinking,  John,  why 
shouldn't  a  minister  have  an  office-S3rstem,  like  a 
doctor,  and  be  '  at  home,'  so  many  hours  a  day  to 
aching  people?" 

It  was  this  suggestion  which  John  Rose,  in  carry- 
ing out  almost  to  the  letter,  had  made  so  memorable 
a  feature  in  his  Harmouth  work.  He  announced  not 
onty  from  the  pulpit  and  in  the  vaguely  polite  ways 
usually  thought  sufficient  to  relieve  the  ministerial 
conscience,  but  literally  upon  his  modest  door-plate, 
like  a  physician  of  the  body,  that  he  who  assumed  to 
prescribe  for  the  health  of  the  soul  would  be  within 
to  patients  from  such  an  hour  to  such  an  hour,  mak- 
ing it  in  due  time  quietly  understood  among  the 
heterogeneous  population  of  the  town,  that  he  held 
himself  answerable  to  the  call  of  any  creature  in  any 
lack,  were  it  of  a  friend  or  a  pillow,  were  it  of 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  289 

Heaven  or  a  dinner,  were  it  of  forgiveness  or  flan- 
nels. 

In  the  course  of  six  months  from  the  inauguration 
of  this  project,  the  young  minister's  heart  and  hands 
were  overwhelmed  with  what  Coy  called  the  "  ach- 
ing people."  The  aching  people  of  a  place  in 
which  the  intelligence  of  society  is  almost  wholly 
absorbed  in  the  impairment  and  the  reception  of 
intellectual  culture,  have  a  certain  bitterness  in  their 
capacity  and  ability  to  ache  not  to  be  matched  in 
communities  of  broader  and  more  human  interests. 

John  Rose  received  into  his  healthy  37oung  heart, 
as  within  the  walls  of  a  newly-consecrated  temple, 
these  refugees  of  human  fate,  on  an  average  per- 
haps to  the  number  of  twenty  souls  each  day.  This 
method  of  labor  brought  him  into  contact  with 
what  we  are  wont  to  term  the  "  dangerous  classes  " 
of  society.  The  walls  of  that  little  study  listened 
to  strange  histories,  not  often,  in  the  chance  of  hu- 
man lots,  brought  across  the  threshold  of  delicate 
homes.  Strange  figures  not  known  to  the  pew-roll  of 
the  Central  Church  skulked  in  on  Sunday  evenings, 
and  stood,  savage,  unkempt,  like  Centaurs,  up  and 
down  the  crowded  aisles.  The  heavy  pew-owners 
were  gratified,  and  proposed  a  mission  church. 

"  If  these  men  and  women  go,  I  go  with  them," 
said  John  Rose  in  a  deep  voice  with  which  his  dea- 
cons were  not  familiar.  "  Turn  them  out  into  a 
mission  church,  if  you  will ;  but  you  turn  me  there 
too." 


290  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

So  the  rich  and  the  poor  met  together  in  this 
young  prophet's  church,  for  the  Lord's  sake,  who 
was  the  Maker  of  them  all.  And  John  Rose  bent 
to  his  sacred  work  with  awed  and  humble  eyes, 
seeking  only  on  the  knees  of  his  heart  to  know 
wherefore  he  had  been  found  worthy  of  that  fate 
than  which  neither  life  nor  death  has  more  glori- 
ous to  give  the  Christian  pastor, — that  the  com- 
mon people  heard  him  gladly. 

That  supervision  of  suffering  and  sinning  homes 
which  his  theor}7  of  Christian  sendee  involved,  he 
assumed  at  the  start  in  person  to  an  extent  which 
experience  compelled  him  to  retrench,  but  which 
served  to  form  a  peculiar  tie  between  himself  and 
his  clientele. 

He  had  often  invited  Mrs.  Ostrander  to  accom- 
pany him  upon  one  of  these  visiting  tours  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  town,  and  one  day  she  went. 

It  had  been  an  uncomfortable  day.  The  child  had 
cried  a  great  deal.  Company  had  come  from  out  of 
town  just  as  she  had,  for  the  first  time  for  weeks, 
locked  her  studio-door  behind  her.  The  weather 
was  extreme  ;  and  it  was  not  so  easy  as  usual  to  be 
patient  with  the  heat,  to  which  she  was,  at  best, 
almost  morbidly  sensitive.  They  had  taken  no 
vacation  this  year :  at  least  she  had  not.  Her  hus- 
band ran  down  to  the  beach  for  a  week  or  so,  as 
usual,  with  a  Hirmouth  party, — the  Hogarths  and 
Aliens,  and  so  on  ;  but  boarding  at  a  watering-place 
with  a  three-months'  baby  is  a  modified  form  of 


THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS.  291 

human  bliss  which  Avis  had  felt  compelled  to  de- 
cline. 

On  this  evening  she  was  alone  :  Philip  was  out  on 
Faculty  business.  She  trod  the  hot  pavements  to 
Coy's  home  with  that  restlessness  which  is  the 
keenest  element  of  physical  distress  in  a  New-Eng- 
land July  day.  Coy  was  busy:  it  was  something 
about  the  mosquitos ;  but  whether  they  had  killed 
the  baby,  or  the  baby  had  killed  the  mosquito, 
Avis  did  not  distinctly  understand,  and  did  not  offer 
to  sfay  and  discover.  The  fire  of  the  outer  air  was 
preferable  to  the  smouldering  atmosphere  of  the 
house.  She  joined  John  Eose  gladly,  and  they 
descended  into  the  Inferno  in  which  the  dregs  of  a 
large  town  are  to  be  found  upon  a  July  night. 

It  is  not  to  the  purpose  of  this  story  to  dwell  upon 
the  sights,  which,  for  the  first  time  in  a  refined  and 
sheltered  life,  passed  at  a  town's  breadth  from  them, 
met  Avis's  young  eyes  that  night.  They  were  the 
eyes  of  a  woman  tender  and  true ;  but  they  were 
those  of  an  artist,  to  whom  it  had  been  mercifully 
given  —  while  her  visions  were  young,  inchoate,  and 
quick  to  dissolve  —  to  be  a  little  color-blind  to 
misery  for  beauty's  sake.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
Avis  understood  that  night  how  the  insight  of  a  single 
hour,  like  a  torch,  may  flare  out  across  the  width 
and  breadth  of  a  life's  work.  She  understood  how 
great  men  have  seen  the  drawing  of  great  purposes, 
the  body-color  of  great  inspirations,  gone  false  in 
the  revelation  of  such  hours.  She  understood  how 


292  TCHE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


Frere  can  exhaust  an  inspiration  upon  the  muscle  in 
the  cheek  of  a  sewing-girl  starving  in  an  attic  ;  and 
how  Millet  was  exiled  from  Paris  for  daring  to  paint 
the  misery  of  peasant-life.  Certain  sights  which  she 
saw  that  night  in  the  tenement-houses  of  Harmouth 
pursued  her  for  years  with  the  force  of  vocal  cries. 
She  felt,  that,  when  she  was  at  work  again,  they  would 
syllable  themselves,  of  sheer  necessity,  in  some  form, 
It  was  still  a  long  time,  however,  before  she  recog- 
nized in  herself  what  she  could  presume  to  call  a 
passion  to  express  the  moan  of  human  famine.  » 

"  One  other  case,"  said  John  Rose,  as  they  turned 
from  the  furnace  of  an  attic-room  in  which  three 
famih'es  dwelt  and  damned  themselves  as  comforta- 
bly as  they  might,  —  "just  one  more,  and  we  will 
go.  Coy  bade  me  be  sure  and  see  this  woman,  —  up 
three  flights,  across  the  court,  if  you  can  make  it? 
The  last  we  heard  of  her  she  could  not  get  about, 
and  so  her  business  was  falling  behind.  But  we  are 
not  to  understand  that  she  was  knocked  down,  and 
trampled  on.  She  fell.  It  is  surprising  how  in- 
secure of  foot  women  with  drunken  husbands,  as  a 
class,  are  found  to  be.  She  is  a  very  respectable 
woman,  from  the  country.  I  got  her  a  little  book- 
agency  a  good  while  ago  ;  and  he  doesn't  get  home 
very  often,  and  so  she  gets  along.  And  Coy  sent 
her  away  for  a  vacation  last  year.  But  I'll  just  run 
up  and  ask  how  it  goes  with  her."  At  that  thresh- 
old Avis  shrank  instinctively,  begging  John  Rose 
to  go  in  without  her. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  293 

The  woman  came  out,  however,  into  the  stifling 
entry-way,  when  the  young  minister  had  completed 
his  errand,  and  gravelv  said,  — 

"  Will  you  not  come  in?  " 

She  was  a  dark-eyed,  rather  delicate  creature,  with 
a  scar  across  her  forehead. 

"  This  is  Mrs.  Ostrander,"  said  John  Rose. 

"Yes,"  said  the  woman  after  a  pause.  "Will 
not  Mrs.  Ostrander  step  into  my  room?  " 

"  I  was  a  stranger,"  replied  Avis,  giving  her  hand, 
which  the  other,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  coldly 
touched.  "  I  did  not  feel  that  I  had  any  right  to 
intrude  upon  you." 

"No,"  said  the  woman  again,  "you  had  not. 
That  is  true.  But  every  one  is  not  so  ready  to  see 
what  is  right." 

An  uneas}7  sympathy  with  a  sorrow,  more  impres- 
sive because  so  foreign  to  her  fancy,  led  Avis  to  turn 
as  she  went  down,  and  say  in  her  pleasant,  womanly 
way, — 

"  If  I  can  be  of  any  use  to  3Tou,  I  hope  you  will 
some  time  come  to  see  me  as  well  as  Mrs.  Rose." 

The  woman  did  not  reply,  but  stood  and  watched 
them  as  they  felt  their  way  down  the  dark  stairs. 
She  had  noticeable  eyes ;  not  so  much  because  of 
their  darkness,  and  they  were  very  dark,  as  because 
of  their  deadness.  They  seemed  either  to  have  lost, 
or  never  to  have  had,  the  refractive  power.  They 
were  the  color  of  cold  coal  when  it  is  in  shadow. 
They  were  of  the  sort  which  give  us  the  uncomfor- 


294  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

table  sensation  of  having  been  once  familiar  with 
them,  but  of  having  disgracefully  forgotten  the  where 
or  the  when.  Avis  was  dully  conscious  of  such  a 
superstition  as  she  crept  down  the  stairs,  and  out 
into  the  oppressive  night.  She  asked  John  Rose 
more  particularly  about  the  woman,  thinking  that 
possibly,  when  Philip  published  that  text-book  which 
had  been  coming  out  so  long,  but  never  came,  he 
might  be  able  to  put  the  poor  thing  in  the  way  of 
some  slight  increase  to  her  precarious  business. 
But,  when  she  spoke  to  Philip  about  it,  she  did  not 
succeed  in  exciting  his  interest  in  the  matter ;  and 
the  chapel  bell  was  ringing  him  away.  Pier  hus- 
band's interests  in  many  things  seemed  to  her,  some- 
how, less  vivid  than  they  were. 

It  was  while  the  incidents  of  the  evening  spent 
among  John  Rose's  "  patients  "  were  still  cut  keenly 
upon  her  memory,  that  word  was  brought  to  her  one 
morning  that  a  book-agent  had  called.  Something 
was  wrong  that  day  —  the  babjr  was  sick,  perhaps, 
or  she  herself  was  overworn  ;  and  she  reminded  the 
servant,  with  some  emphasis,  of  the  rule  of  the 
house  touching  the  admission  of  peddlers. 

"It's  not  so  much  a  peddler,  ma'am,  as  a  lady," 
replied  Mary  Ann,  hesitating ;  "  and  she's  been  badly 
hurt  upon  the  forehead,  ma'am." 

Avis  put  down  the  baby,  — she  remembered  after- 
wards that  the  child  clung  to  her  with  an  irritable 
persistence,  —  she  took  his  little  hands  forcibly  from 
her  neck,  and  went. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  295 

She  recognized  the  woman  at  once  ;  the  scar,  the 
coal-cold  eyes,  and  a  certain  dignity  that  held  itself 
through  her  meagre  dress,  as  well-developed  muscles 
do  through  obedient  tissue.  The  woman  wore  gray 
clothes,  and  carried  a  little  agent's  bag. 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  able  to  be  out,"  began  Mrs. 
Ostrander  at  once.  "Mr.  Rose  told  me  you  had 
been  ill.  Pray  do  not  stand." 

"I  prefer  to  stand,"  the  woman  said,  waving 
away  the  easy-chair  which  Avis  rolled  towards  her. 
There  was  an  awkward  pause,  which  her  visitor 
made  no  motion  to  break.  Avis  said  kindly,  — 

"  Can  I  serve  you  in  any  way?  Have  you  a  book 
to  show  me  to-day?  " 

44 1  did  not  come  to  sell  you  any  book.  I  came  to 
say  good-by.  I  am  going  away.  I  wanted  to  see 
you  once  before  I  go.  I  am  going  to  Texas.  My 
husband  has  come  home,  and  taken  the  notion  to  go 
to  Texas.  The  law  compels  me  to  go  with  him,  as 
if  I  were  a  horse  or  a  cow.  Women  don't  think  of 
such  things  when  they  marry.  I've  had  a  hell  of  a 
life  with  my  husband." 

The  woman  brought  these  words  out  monotonous- 
ly, as  if  she  spoke  of  a  matter  of  course  ;  as  if  she 
had  said,  I've  walked  half  a  mile,  or  I  have  had  my 
breakfast. 

"  I  am  sorry,  indeed  I  am  sorry  for  you,"  mur- 
mured Avis,  at  a  dead  loss  how  to  conduct  a  scene 
like  this. 

"  My  name  is  Jessup,"  proceeded  the  book-agent 


296  TSE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

in  the  same  tone, — ' '  Susan  Jessup.  I  didn't  like  the 
man  when  I  married  him.  I  loved  another  man. 
But  I've  got  long  past  that.  I  never  told  this  before. 
You're  wondering  why,  in  God's  name,  I've  told 
this  to  you,  Mrs.  Ostrander.  In  God's  name,  then, 
I  don't  know  !  I  didn't  mean  to  ;  upon  my  word  I 
didn't.  Is  your  husband  at  home  ?" 

The  excitement  of  this  Mrs.  Jessup' s  manner  had 
so  visibly  and  suddenly  increased,  that  Avis  found 
herself  faintly  disturbed  by  it,  and  stood  wishing 
that  John  Rose  were  at  hand  to  take  care  of  his 
own  "  patients."  It  was  with  a  perceptible  dignity, 
though  gentty  enough,  that  she  said,  — 

"  My  husband  is  out  this  morning.  I  am  sorry. 
Could  he  have  done  any  thing  to  help  you  ?  Do  you 
wish  to  see  him?" 

"No,"  said  the  woman  abruptly,  "he  could  not 
help  me ;  and  I  do  not  wish  to  see  him.  I'm  glad 
he's  out.  I  thought  I'd  like  to  know  he  was  out. 
Perhaps  you've  heard,  Mrs.  Ostrander,  that  I  used 
to  know  your  husband  before  he  was  married.  My 
name  was  Susan  Wanamaker.  I  lived  in  New 
Hampshire,  in  the  same  town  with  him." 

"  Why — yes,"  said  Avis  slowty,  "yes,  I  remem- 
ber. I  have  heard  Professor  Ostrander  speak  of 
you." 

"We  were  great  friends  once,  your  husband  and 
I,"  pursued  her  visitor  with  a  narrow  look  at  her. 

' '  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  —  to  have  heard 
him  say  some  such  thing  himself,"  replied  Avis. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  297 

Her  lips  had  become  quite  dry,  so  that  she  moved 
them  with  difficulty,  and  her  words  went  clumsily. 
A  similar  stiffness  seemed  to  have  settled  upon  the 
action  of  her  mind.  Contingencies  to  which  she 
would  not  have  stooped  to  give  a  name,  pressed  in 
upon  her,  and  seemed  to  exert  a  compelling  influence 
upon  her  speech.  She  was  conscious  of  choosing 
her  words  with  a  terrible  exactness. 

"Oh!  he's  told  you,  then,  has  he?"  said  Mrs. 
Jessup  sharply.  "  You  knew  that  I  once  expected  to 
marry  him  ?  I  suppose  some  husbands  do  tell  their 
wives  every  thing.  I  never  expected  that  Philip 
Ostrander  would  make  such  a  husband." 

"  We  have  spoken  together  of  you,"  said  Avis 
slowly.  In  the  pause  of  her  voice,  the  baby's  cry 
came  from  overhead :  she  put  out  her  hand  to  hold 
herself  by  the  chair  which  her  visitor  had  refused. 
She  spoke  to  this  stranger  with  the  ceremonious  re- 
serve which  the  circumstances  would  seem  to  war- 
rant ;  but  that  sensitively  responsive  sympathy  of 
hers,  which  no  personal  exigency  could  blunt,  led 
her  on  to  say,  — 

1 '  You  should  have  told  us  —  my  husband  and 
me  —  that  you  were  so  unhappy,  in  such  need. 
You  must  have  been  most  miserable,  Mrs.  Jessup  — 
to  have  exposed  —  yourself  or  me  to  a  conversation 
euch  as  this.  What  then  —  what  now  can  I  do  for 
you  to  make  it  worth  while  for  either  of  us  that  we 
should  —  speak  in  this  way?  " 

"  I  saw  you  at  the  funeral,"  proceeded  the  other 


298  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

abruptly,  disregarding  Avis's  words,  as  if  the  force 
of  her  own  reflection  had  deadened  her  power  of 
hearing.  ' '  I  was  up  there  on  a  visit  —  to  get  away 
from  Jessup  for  a  while :  I  was  there  with  my  old 
friends.  I  used  to  be  very  fond  of  Mrs.  Ostrander. 
She  wanted  it  all  to  go  on  —  before  I  married  Jes- 
sup  :  she  thought  Philip  didn't  know  his  mind  —  he 
wasn't  always  apt  to.  Then,  once  I  met  him  here  in 
Harmouth,  in  a  snow-storm,  before  he  married  you. 
And  once  I  went  to  the  chapel-church  to  see  3Tou.  I 
don't  blame  him.  Why,  I  shall  see  that  face  of 
yours  till  I  die!  And  I'm  a  woman.  He  was  a 
man.  Oh,  you  think  I've  come  to  taunt  and  torment 
you !  Women  do  such  things.  You  think  I'm  an 
insolent  creature  !  —  some  of  us  are.  But  I'm  not 
that  kind.  I'm  not  jealous :  I'm  only  desperate. 
I'd  like  to  see  the  man  that  was  worth,  down  at 
the  core  of  him — worth  a  woman's  getting  jealous 
for.  The  sort  of  life  I've  led  spreads  over  you  like 
ivy-poison:  you  distrust  the  whole  lot  of  'em  be- 
cause one  bad  man  brushed  against  you.  When  I 
knew  him,  he  was  such  a  handsome  boy  !  Oh,  you've 
got  him  —  and  I've  got  a  brute  !  That's  the  differ- 
ence between  us.  It's  a  monstrous  difference  !  It's 
a  monstrous  difference  !  ' ' 

She  unfolded  her  thin  hands  from  the  old  shawl  in 
which  she  had  held  them  wrapped  while  she  stood 
talking,  and,  bringing  them  together  at  the  knuckles, 
opened  their  palms,  and  spread  them  out  slowly  and 
impressively  before  Avis  ;  as  if  they  had  been  facts 
patent  to  the  conversation. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  299 

There  is  a  force  peculiar  to  itself  in  the  mere 
anatomical  appeal  of  an  emaciated  hand.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  believe  in  the  grand  despair  of  a  person  with 
plump  fingers. 

Avis  felt  herself  growing  paler  and  paler  under 
this  pressure.  She  tried  to  speak  ;  but  words  looked 
distant  and  small,  too  small  to  be  gathered  up. 

"Married  women  don't  often  look  happier  than 
you  do,"  proceeded  Susan  Jessup  a  little  wildly. 
"I  didn't  think  Philip  Ostrander  could  make  any- 
body look  so  happy.  He  got  tired  of  me.  I 
thought  he  would  get  tired  of  every  other  woman." 

"  We  will  not  discuss  my  husband  any  more  this 
morning,  if  you  please,"  said  Mrs.  Ostrander,  col- 
lecting herself,  not  with  severity,  but  with  a  touch 
of  stateliness.  "  And  I  think,  Mrs.  Jessup,  if  there 
is  really  nothing  that  I  can  do  for  you,  it  will  be  best 
for  us  both  to  put  an  end  to  a  scene  which  —  cannot 
be  fully  agreeable  to  either  of  us." 

"You  do  it  gracefully,"  said  Susan  Jessup  with 
a  bitter  smile,  which,  however,  subsided  instantly. 
"When  I  found  what  I'd  said,  I  expected  to  be 
sent  at  once.  I  hope  you'll  believe,  Mrs.  Ostrander, 
that  I  didn't  come  here  meaning  to  make  trouble.  I 
didn't  even  mean  to  speak  about  it  when  I  came  in ; 
and  I'm  glad  he  had  the  grace  to  tell  you." 

She  turned,  with  her  hand  upon  the  door,  lifting 
her  face  slowty.  Avis  saw  that  it  might  once  have 
been  rather  a  pretty,  uneventful  country  face. 

"I    ion't  know  why  I  came,"    she  said  rather 


300  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

pitifully.  "  Why  does  a  woman  trust  herself  to  do 
anything,  when  she's  beside  herself  with  things  she 
can't  speak  of?  That's  the  worst  of  being  a  woman. 
What  you  go  through  can't  be  told.  It  isn't  respect- 
able for  one  woman  to  tell  another  what  she  has  to 
bear.  When  I  saw  you  last  week,  I  wanted  to  pull 
you  into  my  room  and  cry  in  your  arms  ;  but  I  can't 
cry." 

Some  expression  of  sympathy  hung  confusedly 
upon  Mrs.  Ostrander's  lips  ;  but  she  was  not  sure  if 
she  uttered  it.  She  felt  herself  turning  dizzy  and 
faint,  and  the  wild  figure  in  the  gray  shawl  blurred 
before  her  eyes.  She  remembered,  however,  hold- 
ing out  her  hand,  and  that  the  other  took  it  with  a 
passionate  movement,  and  held  it  for  a  moment  like 
a  screen  before  the  embers  of  her  eyes,  before  she 
closed  the  door,  and  trod  heavity  across  the  hall 
and  out. 

Susan  Jessup  trod  heavily ;  but  her  heart  was  at 
that  moment  light  with  a  certain  noble  joy.  We 
hear  much  of  the  jealousy  and  scorn  of  women 
among  themselves.  It  is  not  often  that  we  are  re- 
minded of  the  quickly-flashing  capacity  for  passion- 
ate attraction  and  generous  devotion  which  renders 
the  relation  of  woman  to  woman  one  of  the  most 
subtle  in  the  world,  and  one  exposed  most  to  the 
chance  of  what  we  call  romantic  episodes.  This 
little  wretched,  excited  creature  turned  her  face 
from  Avis  with  a  sense  of  having  divinely  outwitted 
her.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  Philip  Ostrander 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  301 

had  never  told  his  wife  of  that  affair ;  but  his  wife 
should  never  know  that  she  knew  it. 

That  day  passed  much  like  other  days.  Ostran- 
der  was  very  busy ;  and,  if  his  wife  were  a  shade 
more  quiet  than  usual,  he  was  not  likely  to  notice 
her.  He  dined  with  John  Rose,  and  ran  in  for  a 
little  music  at  the  Aliens  in  the  evening  ;  and  it  was 
late  when  at  last,  the  child  being  well  asleep,  and 
the  women  of  the  house  in  bed,  Avis  told  him  that 
she  wished  to  talk  with  him. 

He  said,  "  What  is  it,  my  dear?  "  He  was  pacing 
the  room,  —  their  own  room,  —  looking  more  than 
usually  comfortable.  He  was  in  his  richly- colored 
dressing-gown,  that  Avis  thought  became  him.  He 
had  an  indefinably  masculine  air  of  mastery  over  his 
circumstances,  and  enjoyment  in  them,  which  it  is 
impossible  to  put  into  words,  but  to  which  a  woman 
is  very  sensitive.  At  that  moment,  when,  drawing 
his  hand  easily  out  of  his  pocket,  he  came  up  and 
touched  his  wife  under  the  chin,  lifting  her  face, 
Avis  felt  a  dull  sense  of  displeasure.  It  seemed  to 
her  excited  thought  that  he  touched  her  lightly, 
much  as  he  twirled  the  great  blue  silk  tassel  of  the 
dressing-gown,  as  if  she  were,  in  some  sense,  the 
idle  ornament  of  a  comfortable  hour.  She  drew  her 
face  back,  and  said  with  grave  abruptness,  — 

4 'Philip,  something  has  occurred  which  I  must 
tell  }TOU  at  once." 

"Very  well,  my  dear,"  said  Philip,  smiling 
down. 


302  $HE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"There  was  a  book -agent  here  this  morning. 
Her  name  was  Susan  Wanamaker." 

"  Has  Susan  Wanamaker  been  here?"  said  Os- 
trander,  standing  still. 

"  And  told  me,  Philip  —  in  my  own  house  —  that 
she  was  once  engaged  to  be  married  to  my  husband." 

Ostrander  slowly  removed  the  hand  with  which  he 
had  sought  to  caress  his  wife's  withdrawing  face : 
the  lordly  silk  tassel  itself  seemed  to  shrink  some- 
how, as  it  hung  from  his  side.  He  took  a  step  back, 
and  thrust  both  hands  again  into  Ms  pockets.  Avis 
did  not  look  up  at  him.  At  that  moment  a  deep 
instinct  forbade  her  to  meet  her  husband's  eyes.  It 
was  as  if  she  thus  saved  herself  and  him  from  some 
vague  disgrace  or  grief.  Whatever  it  was,  whatever 
it  could  be,  that  flitted  across  them,  her  husband 
should  never  have  it  to  remember  that  his  wife  had 
surprised  his  eyes  by  a  stratagem.  She  would 
almost  as  soon  surprise  his  soul.  When  she  had 
thus  given  him  tune,  she  lifted  her  own,  dim  with 
her  sweet  sense  of  honor ;  but  in  his  she  saw  then 
only  that  darting,  scattered  gleam,  — the  quicksilver 
look. 

In  a  deep,  displeased  voice  he  said,  — 

"  And  —  my  wife  discussed  such  a  matter  with  a 
strange  woman,  a  book-peddler,  before  consulting 
me?" 

"  You  wrong  your  wife  !  "  blazed  Avis,  springing 
to  her  feet,  and  holding  herself  grandly.  "  I  am 
afraid  you  have  wronged  me  from  the  beginning.  I 


THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS.  303 

am  afraid  you  do  not  see  —  my  husband  does  not 
see  —  what  is  wrong,  and  what  is  right.  I  don't 
understand  you,  Philip." 

"  I  don't  see  what  could  have  possessed  Susan," 
said  Philip  Ostrander. 

Perhaps  nothing  in  the  range  of  the  English 
vocabulary  would  have  struck  Avis  so  drearily  just 
then  as  those  few  words.  She  could  not  conceive  of 
any  others  which  would  have  so  emphasized  the  dis- 
tance between  the  temper  of  her  thought  and  his.  It 
was  the  sense  of  this  distance  and  difference  which 
oppressed  her  to  an  extent,  that,  for  the  moment, 
obliterated  the  admission  which  the  words  them- 
selves implied. 

But  with  his  characteristic  quickness,  Ostrander's 
manner  suddenly  changed.  He  shook  his  bright 
hair  impatiently,  as  if  shaking  off  a  temporary 
annoyance,  and,  swiftly  turning,  threw  himself  upon 
the  lounge,  and  held  out  his  arms. 

"  Come,  Avis,"  he  said  in  h'is  usual  voice,  "  come 
and  hear  my  story  now." 

The  slight  arraignment  of  her  justice  in  this  ap- 
peal, touched  Avis's  delicate  sense  of  honor.  True, 
she  had  not  heard  his  story.  She  stirred  slowly  to- 
wards him,  and  sat  down  at  the  other  end  of  the 
sofa. 

"  Come,"  he  repeated  still  holding  out  his  arms. 
"  I  can't  talk  to  you  over  there.  No?  Well,  then  ; 
perhaps  I  deserve  it.  But  upon  my  honor,  Avis, 
there  is  so  little  in  this  affair,  that  it  never  occurred 


304  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

to  me  to  tell  you.  I  suppose  Susan  Wanamakcr  did 
think  she  was  going  to  marry  me  once.  She  was 
eighteen,  —  a  country  school-girl:  I  was  just  past 
twenty,  —  a  college-boy.  I  found  I  did  not  love  her, 
and  I  told  her  so.  Was  there  any  thing  dishonora- 
ble in  that?  You  see  at  once,  the  dishonor  would 
have  been  in  going  on  with  the  affair." 

"The  dishonor  la}',"  began  Avis,  but  stopped. 
She  could  not  bring  her  lips  to  say  that  dishonor 
lay  in  her  husband.  "  The  mistake  lay,"  she  went 
on. 

"  Permit  me  one  minute,"  interrupted  Ostrander, 
"  till  3'ou  have  heard  me  out.  Grant  that  I  had  a 
bo3r's  fancy  for  this  girl:  is  that  such  a  crime, 
Avis?  Has  a  man  never  blundered  with  a  pretty 
face  before  ?  Very  well,  then.  Grant  that  I  did  not 
tell  3'ou,  and  so  blundered  again.  I  was  wrong :  I 
perfectly  admit  it.  I  see  it  now,  if  I  never  saw  it 
before.  Poor  Susan  has  made  a  mess  of  it,  for 
which  I'm  outrageously  sorry.  I  wouldn't  have  had 
3rou  so  mortified  for  the  world !  It's  a  confounded 
faux  pas ! ' ' 

"  She  does  not  know,"  said  Avis  more  gently. 
"  I  told  her  we  had  talked  of  you.  She  thinks  you 
had  told  me.  But  the  mortification  was  the  least  of 
it,  Philip." 

The  mortification  was  the  most  of  it  on  Ostran- 
der's  face  at  that  moment.  His  lips  murmured  some 
phrase  of  relief ;  but  his  heart  took  little  comfort  in 
it.  Susan  was  not  dull.  And  Avis's  marble  recti- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  305 

tude  of  speech  was  not  calculated  to  make  the  most 
of  a  matter.  Who  could  have  thought  that  Susan 
would  have  turned  up  in  this  way  ?  Women  needed 
to  be  guarded  against  the  accidents  of  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other  as  much  as  against  graver  in- 
discretions ;  though  he  must  admit  that  his  wife 
seemed  to  have  held  herself  with  admirable  prudence 
throughout  a  very  awkward  position.  Poor  Avis ! 
How  solitary  she  looked  over  at  the  end  of  the  sofa, 
across  the  color  of  the  cushion.  Ostrander  at  that 
moment  wished  with  all  his  heart  that  his  wife  might 
have  loved  some  better  fellow.  He  wished  he  had 
that  talent  for  openness,  which  a  perfectly  honor- 
able man  may  yet  lack,  but  of  which  he  felt  the 
want  keenly  in  an  emergency  like  this.  He  said 
with  genuine  agitation, — 

"  I  was  wrong,  Avis,  quite  wrong.  I  ought  to 
have  told  you  all  about  that  affair.  And  it's  not 
quite  true,  perhaps,"  he  added  frankly,  u  that  it 
never  occurred  to  me  to  tell  you.  I  think  it  did  — 
must  have.  But  I  was  having  such  extra  hard  work 
of  it  to  win  you,  — do  me  the  justice  to  remember,  — 
and  a  breath  would  have  blown  out  my  chance. 
Perhaps  the  plain  truth  was,  I  didn't  dare  talk  about 
it.  You  were  not  in  a  state  to  be  tolerant  of  a  lot 
of  boyish  nonsense.  And  I  knew  I  had  nothing 
wrong  or  base  to  hide  from  you.  And  every  other 
woman  seemed  so  far  away  from  me  after  I  knew 
you  !  —  and  all  other  feeling  so  false  !  " 

Her  husband  spoke  with  a  tremulous  passion  which 


306  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

she  did  not  often  look  to  hear  now,  in  the  stress  and 
haste  of  daily  care  into  which  marriage  seemed  to 
resolve  itself,  in  which  it  seemed  a  man  and  woman 
must  take  their  love  for  granted  to  save  time.  She 
yielded  to  the  stir  of  feeling  like  a  harp  to  a  hand. 
When  Philip  said  with  a  delicate  reproach  in  his 
voice,  "After  all,  Avis,  I  think  I  have  the  worst 
of  it,  you  have  nothing  to  repent,"  she  crept  towards 
him  across  the  rose-colored  cushion  with  a  long,  ex- 
hausted sigh.  She  was  perplexed  at  finding  herself, 
at  the  very  moment  when  her  nature  had  risen  most 
emphatically  in  rebuke  of  his,  most  weakened  with 
the  need  of  his  love.  Was  there  always  an  incal- 
culable element  in  the  radical  metamorphosis  which 
wifehood  wrought  ?  Was  this  one  of  the  ambuscades 
of  nature  against  which  a  strong  woman  must  per- 
force go  fortifying  herself  to  the  end  of  life  ?  She 
hid  herself — she  would  have  hidden  herself  from 
her  own  consciousness  just  then  —  upon  her  hus- 
band's breast. 

For  him,  he  bowed  his  head  over  her  in  a  solemn 
and  solitary  shame.  lie  could  not  know  what  was 
in  her  guarded  heart.  He  felt  that  he  had  in  a  dun 
sense  lost  the  right  to  know.  They  sat  clinging,  but 
separate. 

Presently  he  began  to  talk  to  her  again  of  what 
they  had  been  saying,  thinking  it  most  natural  and 
best.  He  spoke  of  the  night  in  which  he  had  met 
poor  Susan  in  the  streets  of  Harmouth ;  he  dwelt 
upon  every  detail  of  the  affair  which  he  could  recall : 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  307 

the  process  gave  Mm  a  late,  agreeable  sense  of  can- 
dor, lie  went  farther ;  he  told  his  wife  that  he  sup- 
posed he  had  been  a  susceptible  boy.  His  fancy,  he 
said,  had  been  a  gusty  thing  till  he  found  her ;  he 
had  never  felt  quite  sure  that  he  was  capable  of  a 
permanent  feeling,  till  he  loved  her.  He  spoke 
sadly,  as  we  speak  of  a  misfortune  of  the  nature  as 
distinct  from  a  fault. 

Aristotle  ranks  confidence  as  one  of  the  passions. 

Avis  felt  rather  sorry  for  her  husband,  and  feared 
she  had  been  harsh.  And  then  the  baby  cried,  and 
she  went  to  him  ;  and  Philip  went  down  to  finish  the 
article  on  the  electric  battery. 

It  was  late  when  he  came  up  stairs  again.  He  found 
Avis  fallen  asleep  upon  the  lounge,  half  wrapped  in 
the  shoulder-robe  from  the  hammock :  the  rose  and 
white  silk  was  fading,  like  all  the  other  little  fancies 
about  the  house.  His  wife's  face,  too,  seemed  to 
have  faded  with  the  rest  of  the  bridal  brightness. 
She  had  thrown  herself  down  with  the  especial  grace 
which  great  exhaustion  gives  to  a  lithe  figure.  Avis 
was  too  much  of  an  artist  ever  to  choose  an  awkward 
pose  :  she  would  have  writhed  under  one,  he  thought, 
had  she  been  dead.  If  she  had  been  alone  in  the 
universe,  she  would  have  thrown  that  firm  hand  of 
hers,  upon  which  no  e}^e  should  ever  rest,  with  just 
that  slowly- surrendered  outline  across  the  happy 
pillow.  Her  hand  was  a  trifle  worn,  too,  like  her 
cheek.  Her  husband  stood  looking  down.  There 
swept  and  gathered  upon  his  face  an  expression 


308  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

which  it  was  as  well  for  both  of  them,  perhaps,  that 
Avis  did  not  see.  Whether  it  were  most  of  self- 
reproach  or  self-pity,  of  tenderness  or  terror,  it  were 
hard  to  say.  Whether  he  the  more  distrusted  him- 
self at  that  moment,  or  the  more  believed  in  her, 
perhaps  Philip  Ostrander  could  not  for  his  soul's 
sake  have  answered. 

He  stooped  and  kissed  her.  He  was  more  in  love 
with  his  wife  just  then  than  a  busy  man  can  afford 
to  be  every  day  in  the  year.  Avis  stirred,  and, 
lifting  her  hand,  gravely  drew  his  face  beside  hers 
on  the  pillow.  She  did  not  tell  him  that  she  had  not 
been  asleep.  She  listened  to  the  faint  tapping  of 
the  elm-bough  upon  the  window;  a  dreaming  bird 
chirped  in  its  nest  somewhere  in  the  summer  night ; 
in  the  sensitive,  windless  distance,  the  college-boys 
were  singing  Kinkel's  "  Soldier's  Farewell."  The 
wildly- swelling  words  came  up,  — 

"  How  can  I  bear  to  leave  thee  ?  " 

The  mournful  monotone  of  the  frogs  piped  from  the 
meadows  beyond  the  town,  and  under  all  fitful 
music  she  heard  the  chant  of  the  eternal  sea. 

Afterwards  she  wondered  how  it  would  have  been, 
daring  to  wish  that  they  had  died  that  night,  —  they 
two,  —  dumb  with  the  sweetness  of  reconciliation  and 
resolve  ;  nay,  they  three,  —  Philip  with  the  boyish 
love  and  laughter  in  his  eyes,  and  the  baby  sleeping 
in  the  crib,  and  she  herself  just  then  content  to  have 
it  so. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  309 

It  was  Philip  who  was  wakeful  that  night.  Visions 
which  he  would  just  then  have  gone  blind  to  forget, 
electrotyped  themselves  upon  the  half -lit  room. 
Long  odorous  country  twilights,  the  scent  of 
honeysuckle  about  a  farmhouse-door,  the  pressure 
of  confiding  fingers  on  his  arm,  the  uplifting  of  a 
young  face,  the  touch  of  trustful  life,  pursued  him 
rather  with  the  force  of  sensations  than  reflections. 
With  these  came  other  ghosts,  incoherent  fancies, 
aimless  fevers,  nameless  dreams.  He  shielded  his 
eyes  from  the  nursery-lamp,  watching  the  uncon- 
scious face  of  his  wife  with  a  fine  envy  which  only 
a  noble  soul,  or  the  nobler  side  of  an  inharmonious 
soul,  could  have  commanded.  She,  —  she  only  of 
themselves, — he  said,  was  the  truly  married.  He 
could  think  of  no  lesser  joy  which  he  would  not  have 
sacrificed  just  then,  if  he  could  have  brought  to  her 
that  absolutely  unmortgaged  imagination  which  she 
had  brought  to  him. 

He  drank  the  ashes  of  his  own  nature  in  silence, 
as  soldiers  swallow  in  their  wine  the  cinders  of 
their  worn-out  colors,  before  unfurling  new. 

Faint  and  more  faintly  in  the  distance,  from  the 
now  dispersing  boj^s,  the  cry  came  up,  — 

" Farewell,  farewell,  my  own  true  love!" 


310  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER   XVH. 

"  Men  think  that  it  is  ungrateful  to  the  Creator  to  say  that  it  is  the 
design  of  Providence  to  keep  us  in  a  state  of  constant  pain  ;  but  .  .  . 
were  our  joys  permanent  we  should  never  leave  the  state  in  which  we 
are  ;  we  should  never  undertake  aught  new.  That  life  we  may  call  happy 
which  is  furnished  with  all  the  means  by  which  pain  can  be  overcome  : 
we  have,  in  fact,  no  other  conception  of  human  happiness."  — 


"  nnHE  worst  of  it  is  the  babies,"  said  aunt  Chloe, 
J_  giving  a  severe  twist  to  her  flower-pots,  that 
would  have  estranged  the  devotion  of  any  thing  else 
than  the  verbenas.  But  verbenas  are  not  sensitive  : 
one  knows  about  how  far  one  can  go  with  them.  "I 
don't  see  but  the  worst  of  it  always  is  the  babies,  in 
this  world,"  she  proceeded,  and  prayed  next  minute 
to  be  forgiven  for  so  unevangelical  a  sentiment. 
Aunt  Chloe  -was  so  stubborn  to  the  advance  of  civil- 
ization, that  she  still  held  that  the  Lord  never  sent 
more  mouths  than  he  could  fill.  She  would  have 
thought  it  very  unwomanly  to  confess  to  Avis  her 
conscious  lack  of  enthusiasm  at  the  birth  of  this 
second  child.  She  blamed  herself,  that  in  her  honest 
heart  poor  Avis'  s  experience  of  motherhood  gave 
her  so  much  more  anxiety  than  pleasure,  and  at- 
tributed it  all  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Ostrander  would  use 
homoeopathic  remedies  for  the  croup.  And  now  — 
"  Who  is  going  to  prepare  Avis  for  this  ?  "  asked 
aunt  Chloe,  turning  her  back  on  the  verbenas  with- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  311 

out  ceremony,  and  standing  on  tiptoe  laboriously  to 
remove  a  bit  of  lint  from  her  brother's  coat-collar 
while  she  spoke  :  it  was  not  necessary  that  they 
should  meet  each  other's  eyes.  When  a  literary 
man  is  in  any  kind  of  trouble,  he  does  not  want  his 
women-folks  to  know  too  much  about  it :  that,  aunt 
Cliloe  thought  might  be  easily  understood,  even  in  a 
business  family.  When  the  professor  said  shortly,  — 

"I  suppose  I  must  tell  her  myself,"  going  out, 
and  letting  the  wind  take  the  door  behind  him,  she 
said,  "  Poor  Hegel !"  and  wondered  if  the  arbute- 
lon  overheard  her.  And  then  she  went  to  start  a 
lemon-cream  for  his  dinner.  She  remembered  that 
she  gave  him  lemon-cream  the  day  the  president 
vetoed  that  plan  about  the  post-graduate  courses ; 
and  what  a  comfort  it  seemed  to  be  to  her  brother ! 
And  then  perhaps  poor  Avis  would  taste  of  it ;  and 
there  really  was  no  hurry  about  the  child's  shirts. 
Aunt  Chloe,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  had  expended 
all  the  poetry  of  her  allegiance  upon  the  first  baby. 
It  did  not  seem  so  necessary  to  crochet  the  edges  of 
things  for  this  one,  poor  little  lassie ;  and  she  had 
put  fully  five  cents  a  yard  less  into  the  flannels. 

Mrs.  Ostrander's  little  girl  was  four  weeks  old, 
four  weeks  that  very  day,  as  the  professor  —  Heaven 
knows  how  !  —  chanced  to  remember  on  the  way  to 
his  daughter's  house.  He  was  rather  proud  of  him- 
self for  thinking  of  it,  and  made  the  most  of  the  little 
matter.  He  was  nervous  over  what  he  had  to  say. 
He  thought  he  had  never  seen  Avis  looking  so  poor- 


312  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

ly.  He  took  the  child  from  her,  for  she  held  it 
rather  listlessly  across  her  arm  upon  the  rose-red 
lounge:  he  lifted  the  little  maiden  upon  his  knee 
well-nigh  as  tenderly  as  if  she  had  been  a  leaf  from 
the  "  Rhetoric  "or  "  Poetic  "  in  the  original  auto- 
graph. When  the  boy  ran  in,  he  gave  him  a  cough- 
lozenge,  and  said,  — 

"  And  how  is  Van  Dyck,  to-day  ?  "  with  a  sense  of 
unusual  originality  of  expression.  In  his  heart  the 
professor  was  rather  glad  that  day,  that  the  boy  had 
not  taken  a  family  name.  Avis  had  never  been 
heard  to  express  a  wish  to  name  her  son  for  his 
father.  She  did  not  try  to  explain  either  to  herself 
or  to  another  why  this  was.  We  do  not  always  re- 
member that  a  woman  seeks  and  finds  two  perfectly 
distinct  beings  in  one  and  the  same  man.  For  her- 
self, she  can  afford  to  love  a  human  creature ;  for 
the  father  of  her  child  she  demands  a  God.  That 
very  weakness  in  his  nature  upon  which  she  will 
abnegate  herself,  which  perhaps  she  will  lower  the 
tone  of  her  own  soul  to  idealize  into  a  perversion  of 
strength,  she  will  defy  like  a  lioness  in  its  transmis- 
sion to  her  son.  But  Avis  did  not  talk  —  even  to 
her  own  husband  —  much  about  her  children.  There 
were  throes  of  the  soul  in  her  strong  motherhood, 
which  it  was.no  more  possible  to  share  than  to  share 
a  physical  pang. 

When  the  professor  had  repeated,  "And  how  is 
Van?"  and  asked  the  four- weeks'  baby  (in  the 
anxious  tone  of  a  man  who  expects  a  reply)  if  she 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  313 

were  sitting  quite  comfortably,  he  found  that  he  had 
exhausted  his  nursery  vocabulary  ;  and  when  he  had 
said  helplessly,  — 

"  Are  you  quite  well  to-daj',  my  dear?"  and 
when  Avis  replied  that  she  was  gaining  slowly  every 
day,  his  mind  proved  to  be  perfectly  barren  of  any 
further  phrases  logically  consequent  upon  the  prem- 
ise formed  by  the  morsel  of  humanity  upon  his  knee. 
He  began  therefore,  at  once,  but  with  a  certain  hesi- 
tation to  which  Avis's  transparent  face  became  mag- 
netically alive,  — 

44 1  came  for  a  special  purpose  to-day,  Avis :  I 
want  to  have  a  little  talk  with  you  about — 3Tour  hus- 
band." 

"  Van,"  said  his  mother  immediately,  u  run  into 
the  nursery."  She  spoke  to  her  two-years'  baby 
in  a  tone  which  assumes  both  intelligence  and  obe- 
dience in  the  listener.  "Mary  Ann,  take  the  child 
—  take  both  the  babies,  and  do  not  bring  them  back 
till  they  are  sent  for.  —  Now,  father,  what  is  it? 
What  has  Philip  done?" 

She  raised  herself  upon  the  pillow  with  a  sharp 
motion.  The  deep  circles  about  her  eyes  seemed  to 
widen,  like  the  circles  in  the  sea  into  which  a  blazing 
jewel  is  sinking. 

"  He  has  not  done  any  thing,"  said  the  professor 
nervously  ;  "  and  that  is  exactly  the  trouble." 

"  Do  you  mean,"  asked  Avis  in  a  rapid,  busi- 
ness-like tone,  "  that  my  husband  is  not  giving 
satisfaction  in  the  university?" 


314  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Somebody  must  tell  you/'  pleaded  the  poor  pro- 
fessor. "  I  thought  you  would  rather — perhaps  — 
it  would  be  I." 

"  Walk  the  floor,  father,"  said  Avis,  after  a 
moment's  silence  :  "  you  will  feel  a  great  deal  more 
comfortable .  Don' t  mind  me . ' ' 

The  professor,  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  thrust  back 
his  chair,  and  trode  heavily  to  and  fro :  the  floor  of 
the  room  shook  beneath  its  faded  roses. 

4 'Now,"  said  Avis,  after  a  slightly  longer  pause 
than  before,  —  "now  tell  me  all  about  it.  I  am 
quite  ready  to  hear.  Stop !  To  begin  with,  does 
Philip  know  this?" 

"N-n — I  do  not  know.  Probably  not.  There 
has  been  no  direct  expression  of  dissatisfaction  made 
to  him  as  yet.  How  sensitive  he  is  to  the  indirect 
command  of  the  situation,  it  is  not  possible  to  say. 
There  is  a  committee  of  the  Board  in  town  to-day : 
that  is  why  I  have  annoyed  you  with  it.  Proba- 
bly the  matter  will  be  taken  up  at  once  in  some 
form.  I  thought  you  would  prefer,  and  he,  that 
you  should  be  forewarned." 

"  Thank  you,  sir !  "  said  Avis  in  a  low  voice. 

"The  trouble  is" — began  the  professor,  and 
stopped. 

' '  The  trouble  is  ?  "  prompted  Avis  gently. 

' '  That  your  husband  does  not  attend  to  his  busi- 
ness," said  her  father  desperately.  "The  depart- 
ment is  running  behind.  It  ought  to  be  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  in  the  college.  Under  Professor  Co- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  315 

bin's  day  it  acquired  a  prestige,  which,  of  course, 
makes  it  difficult  for  a  younger  man,  any  younger 
man.  I  thought  Mr.  Ostrander  was  equal  to  these 
difficulties.  He  is  not :  that  is  about  all." 

''Still  I  don't  understand,"  urged  Avis.  "Is 
not  Philip  enough  of  a  man  for  the  position  ?  Did 
you  overestimate  his  abilit}r  to  start  with  ?  In  plain 
words,  has  not  he  the  brains  for  it?  " 

4 '  He  has  the  brains  for  any  thing ! ' '  exclaimed 
the  professor  irritably,  "that  he  chooses  to  apply 
himself  to.  It  is  not  his  ability  that  has  been  over- 
rated." 

"What,  then?"  insisted  Avis.  "Does  my  hus- 
band shirk?" 

She  brought  the  ugly  word  out  with  a  keen  em- 
phasis with  which  it  was  not  possible  to  parley. 
"Certainty,"  she  added  with  a  momentary  flash, 
"he  is  not  an  idle  man:  he  works  hard.  Philip  is 
rather  overworked  than  underworked.  I  think  he  is 
always  busy.  I  do  not  in  the  least  understand 
where  all  this  activity  has  gone  to,  if  it  has  not  gone 
into  the  department." 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  say  where  it  has  gone,"  replied 
her  father  nervously.  "I  doubt  if  he  knows  him- 
self. It  is  not  quite  fair  to  call  a  man  a  shirk,  per- 
haps, while  he  is  occupied  in  so  many  —  but  the 
trouble  is,  they  are  not  the  right  directions.  He 
bends  himself  to  too  many  things.  Now  it  is  elec- 
tricity ;  now  it  is  magnetism ;  then  it  is  a  process 
for  utilizing  coal-gas.  Just  now  it  is  a  new  method 


316  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

for  blowing  up  caterpillars  —  blowing  up  fiddle- 
sticks !  His  business  is  in  his  class-room.  He  ought 
not  to  see  one  inch  be}Tond  the  faces  of  those  boys 
this  five  years.  He  ought  to  absorb  that  morning 
recitation  as  the  old  Hebrew  prophets  swallowed  the 
scroll  on  which  the  word  of  God  was  written.  Every 
fossil  ought  to  be  a  poem  to  him.  He  shouldn't 
be  able  to  say  Old  Red  Sandstone  without  a  thrill ! 
He  should  have  conquered  his  lecture-room  by 
this  time.  There  is  a  soul  in  science :  he  should 
have  handled  her  body  reverently  for  her  soul's 
sake.  He  should  have  overwhelmed  that  class  with 
his  inspirations,  as  the  deluges  have  overmastered 
the  mountains.  When  every  man  in  it  worth  edu- 
cating could  get  an  enthusiasm  out  of  a  chip  of  gran- 
ite ;  when  a  man  he'd  marked  down  on  examination 
would  huzza  for  him  in  the  street ;  when  the  college 
papers  were  afraid  to  lampoon  him,  — then  he  might 
have  taken  to  his  magazine-writing,  and  his  what- 
not, and  the  more  welcome.  When  the  college  could 
afford  to  be  proud  of  him  was  the  time  to  let  the 
world  know  that  such  a  man  as  Philip  Ostrander 
was  in  it.  Well"  —  the  professor  brought  himself 
up  short  before  his  daughter's  sofa  with  burning 
eyes —  "  I  am  tiring  you,  Avis.  It  is  a  great  pity : 
it  is  all  a  pit}^." 

"Then  Philip  has  done  —  none  of  this?"  pro- 
ceeded Avis  authoritatively.  "He  has  been  impa- 
tient, volatile  —  he  has  "  —  She  paused. 

"  He  has  shirked  the  drudgery  of  the  class-room," 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  317 

,said  her  father  in  a  lower  and  calmer  tone.  "  He 
got  weary  of  it.  He  has  dissipated  himself  irf  un- 
consequent  ways.  He  has  no  more  business  to  be 
giving  popular  lectures  on  physiolog}T,  or  writing 
poetry  for  the  newspapers,  than  I  have  to  set  up  a 
milliner's  shop  on  the  college  green.  It  is  too  bad, 
too  bad.  But,  my  dear,  I'm  tiring  you." 

"  The  trouble,"  began  Avis,  hesitating. 

"  The  trouble  with  your  husband,  my  child,"  said 
the  professor  with  something  of  gathering  enthusi- 
asm in  his  manner,  as  though  he  propounded  a  well- 
involved  metaphysical  problem  to  a  rather  superior 
class,  —  "  the  trouble  is  an  extraordinary  lack  of  in- 
tellectual constanc}r.  It  —  it  really  is  nothing  worse, 
my  dear,"  he  added  soothingly.  "  It  does  not  pre- 
vent him  from  possessing  all  those  domestic  virtues 
which  have  doubtless  endeared  him  to  you ;  and  I 
must  say,"  tremulously — "to  myself  as  well.  I 
have  been  very  much  drawn  to  the  }'Oung  man,  as  to 
—  a  —  son.  After  we  have  adjusted  ourselves  to 
this  —  blow,  my  dear,  something  else  will  open  for 
him.  I  see  no  reason  for  indulging  in  any  undue  — 
regrets.  As  for  yourself ' '  — 

"  Should  Philip  resign  at  once?"  demanded  Avis 
in  the  metallic  tone  which  resolutely  suppressed 
feeling  gives  to  a  tender  voice. 

u  It  may  be  —  I  cannot  tell  till  after  the  meeting 
of  the  Board.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  will  be 
done,  or  when,  about  a  successor.  But  it  will  not 
be  expected  that  his  resignation  shall  take  effect 


318  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

before  the  end  of  the  year.  That  will  give  us  six 
months  to  look  about  us  in,"  added  the  professor 
rather  miserably. 

He  came  and  stood  beside  his  daughter,  looking 
compassionately  at  her.  He  did  not  seek  to  offer 
her  a  consolation  which  her  nature  would  inevitably 
reject.  Her  lip  did  not  tremble.  She  had  the  half- 
recoiling  but  wholly  patient  look  of  one  who  was 
adjusting  herself  to  a  familiar  experience  in  a  slightly 
altered  form.  She  put  up  her  hand,  and  said  only,  — 

4 'Thank  you,  father!  " 

And  he  said,  — 

"  There,  there,  my  dear !  " 

And  then  the  little  boy  ran  in,  with  Mary  Ann 
and  the  baby  behind  him. 

Avis  gathered  both  the  children  in  her  arms  with 
a  quick  and  passionate  motion.  Her  heart  said, 
"  Oh!  what  have  we  done  to  bring  them  into  this 
world?  What  have  we  done ?  What  can  we  do ?" 
But  her  lips  said  nothing  at  all. 

11  The  little  folks  interfere  with  the  studio  just 
now,"  said  the  professor  awkwardly,  coming  back 
when  he  was  across  the  threshold  of  the  room.  He 
was  sick  at  heart  to  say  some  tender  word.  "  If  her 
mother  had  lived,"  he  thought,  "this  might  some- 
how have  been  spared."  Whenever  Avis  was  in 
any  trouble,  he  always  said,  "If  her  mother  had 
lived  "  —  The  great  professor  was  as  unconscious 
of  any  logical  flaw  in  this  sweet  inconsequence,  as 
the  lover  is  of  the  laws  regulating  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  in  the  lip  he  kisses. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  319 

"Yes,  papa,'*  said  Avis,  falling  back  into  the 
pretty  girlish  fashion  of  speech  that  she  had  scarcely 
outgrown  before  her  marriage. 

"But  as  soon  as  you  are  about  again  —  and  — 
the  little  girl  begins  to  grow,  we  shall  have  some 
more  pictures  I  hope,  my  dear?  " 

"  Yes,  papa,"  patiently.  But  she  said  nothing 
more.  It  did  not  seem  to  help  any  thing  to  talk 
about  it.  And  then  the  baby  began  to  cry  —  her 
little  daughter  —  her  woman-child.  Avis  looked  at 
her,  and  said,  "  You  too,  you  too!"  It  seemed  to 
her  just  then  more  than  she  could  bear,  to  know 
that  she  had  given  life  to  another  woman. 

When  her  husband  came  to  her  with  the  news,  a 
day  or  two  after,  she  had  so  far  adjusted  her  mind 
to  it,  that  she  was  able  to  receive  its  announcement 
from  himself  in  the  only  way  which  —  long  after  — 
she  could  have  recalled  without  regret. 

He  came  in  looking  very  pale.  She  had  heard  him 
coughing  in  the  hall :  the  day  was  damp.  He  threw 
himself  heavily  upon  the  lounge,  and  said,  — 

"  Has  your  father  told  you  what  has  happened?  " 

"Yes,  Philip." 

"How  long  since?" 

"On  Tuesday." 

"  Some  way  or  other,"  said  Ostrander  irritably, 
"  I  have  offended  Cobin.  He  has  been  more  or  less 
cavalierly  in  his  treatment  of  me  this  long  while. 
When  it's  time  for  a  man  to  die,  he  never  can  under- 
stand why  other  men  are  alive.  He  opposed  me 


320  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

about  the  museum  ;  he  complained  of  my  Star  Course 
Lectures  ;  I  haven't  raised  a  point  in  Faculty  meeting 
this  year,  that  he  hasn't  voted  down.  I  attribute 
this  disaster  entirely  to  the  cause  which  has  ruined 
so  many  a  young  man,  —  the  jealousy  of  his  senior 
colleague." 

Avis  made  no  reply.  She  could  not  speak  just 
then.  It  did  not  seem  a  sane  expense  of  words, 
which,  at  best,  must  be  hard  to  choose.  She  let 
him  dribble  on  petulantly  for  a  few  minutes.  Her 
boy  at  her  knee  was  vociferously  claiming  it  an  evi- 
dence of  extraordinary  maternal  depravity,  that  his 
little  sister  was  not  allowed  rubber-boots  with  which 
to  go  to  walk  with  him.  The  child's  voice  and  his 
father's  chimed  together  oddly.  She  stood  apart 
from  them,  — these  two  intensely  wrought  male  per- 
sonalities, with  whose  clamorous  selfism  it  was  im- 
possible to  reason.  It  struck  her  unpleasantly  at 
that  moment  that  Van  might  be  like  his  father,  if  he 
lived  to  grow  up.  She  pushed  the  boy  a  little  away 
from  her,  then  drew  him  penitently  back. 

"  What  in  Heaven's  name  is  going  to  become  of 
us,"  Philip  was  saying,  "is  more  than  I  can  see. 
The  mere  mortification  of  it  is  enough  to  kill  a 
stronger  man  than  I  am." 

"Never  mind,  dear,"  said  Avis,  exactly  as  she 
spoke  to  the  child.  She  came  up,  and  bent  over  the 
lounge,  passing  her  strong  hand  across  his  forehead 
and  hair,  with  the  magnificent,  maternal  motions 
which  her  fingers  had  learned  more  slowly  than  those 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  321 

of  most  women,  but  more  passionately.  When  he 
said,  — 

"My  head  aches  horribly !"  she  stooped  and 
kissed  him,  and  said,  — 

"  My  poor  boy  !  " 

It  was  impossible  for  her  to  render  any  thing  more 
reasonable  than  tenderness  to  a  humiliated  man. 

"  It  is  hard  for  }TOU,  coming  just  now,"  said  Os- 
trander,  rather  as  an  afterthought.  "  I  wish  the 
children  were  not  both  babies.  It's  a  confoundedly 
tough  thing  for  a  man  with  a  young  family  to  be 
turned  adrift  in  this  way.  I  should  have  thought/' 
irritably,  "that  your  father's  influence  fnight  have 
prevented  it.  But  it  seems  he  couldn't  or  didn't 
exercise  it.  I  shall  write  my  resignation  to-morrow, 
and  get  it  off  my  mind.  Ought  you  to  stand  so 
long,  Avis?  " 

"It  does  not  hurt  me;"  but  she  sank  wearily 
down  upon  the  edge  of  the  lounge.  Philip  did  not 
move  to  make  room  for  her,  but  lay  with  his  brows 
knotted  with  pain,  and  his  restless  eyes  flitting  about 
the  room.  She  slipped  down  upon  her  knees,  and 
so  knelt,  crouched  and  cramped,  till  the  life  of  her 
sensitive  hand  had  spent  itself  upon  him. 

"  The  pain  is  gone,  thank  you,"  he  said  at  last 
politely.  Avis  rose  at  once,  and  took  a  chair.  In 
these  days,  if  she  caressed  her  husband,  it  was  with 
a  sufficient  and  distinct  reason :  the  time  had  tripped 
by  when  he  expected  her  to  sit  within  reach  of  his 
hand,  within  vibration  of  his  breath,  within  the  maze 


322  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

of  all  that  sweet  young  folly  which  is  wiser  than  the 
love  of  the  ages  to  those  who  love.  It  was  so  with 
all  married  people,  she  supposed. 

"Whatever,"  began  Philip,  "is  to  turn  up 
next"  — 

"  Whatever  we  do  next,  I  hope  we  shall  be  able 
to  persevere  in  it,"  suggested  Avis  gently.  She 
was  not  a  woman  of  reproaches.  Philip  Ostrander's 
wife  never  "  nagged  "  him.  He  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders now,  and  said,  — 

"  Perhaps  it  is  all  for  the  best.  I  was  worn  out 
with  that  eternal  class-room,"  rather  sullenly. 
Then  he  complained  of  the  draught,  and  said  that 
he  had  taken  colcl,  and  asked  what  on  earth  the 
baby  was  crying  about  now. 

Avis' s  heart  brooded  over  him,  seeing  him  so 
irritable  and  weak,  as  if  he  had  been  a  wounded 
thing.  She  drew  a  little  nearer,  and  began  to  plan 
and  purpose  for  him,  as  she  would  for  an  excited 
boy  who  had  got  into  a  scrape.  She  brought  the 
whole  machinery  of  her  superb  imagination  to  bear 
upon  their  future.  She  presented  it  to  him  in  the 
colors  of  courage  and  the  ardors  of  hope.  She  spoke 
with  a  cheer  and  assurance  that  rang  hollow  to  her 
own  forebodings.  Ostrander  warmed  at  this  tremu- 
lous fire  He  talked  of  his  command  of  the  lan- 
guages, of  his  medical  education.  He  thanked 
Heaven  that  he  had  never  been  a  man  of  one  idea  ; 
and  now,  whatever  versatility  it  had  pleased  Provi- 
dence to  endow  him  with  would  serve  them  through 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

this  emergency  till  another  position  offered.  Avis 
listened,  and  said,  — 

"  Yes,  Philip."  She  sat  with  her  face  turned 
from  him. 

"  Of  course  it  will  be  impossible  to  meet  the  first 
annoyance  of  this  by  living  along  here,"  said  Os- 
trander  in  a  tone  that  admitted  of  no  reply.  "  I 
must  get  abroad  for  a  month  or  so  at  the  end  of  the 
year ;  but  I  think  we  can  manage  that.  And,  as 
soon  as  I  return,  I  shall  take  to  lecturing.  It  is 
impossible  that  we  should  get  into  a  very  tight  place. 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  freedom  of  such  a  life  will 
not  be  better  for  my  health.  Whenever  I  get  strong 
enough  to  go  under  the  harness  of  all  this  drudgery 
again,  some  other  college  will  be  ready  for  me.  At 
least,  a  good  American  can  always  go  West.  We 
won't  give  up  the  ship  for  one  blunder,  Avis." 

He  put  out  his  hand  to  her  affectionately;  he 
thanked  her  for  her  courage  and  consideration ;  he 
was  afraid  he  had  overwearied  her  in  her  state  of 
health.  His  spirits  and  his  tenderness  rose  together. 
And  Avis  to  herself  said,  with  a  leap  of  her  strong 
heart,  "No,  we  will  give  up  nothing,  not  for  many 
blunders."  She  gathered  him  under  the  wing  of 
her  great  love  with  a  kind  of  fierce  maternal  pro- 
tection;  her  husband,  —  the  man  who  had  won  her 
lost  freedom  from  her ;  life  of  her  life,  and  soul  of 
her  soul ;  hers  in  his  weakness  as  once  in  his  glit- 
tering strength  ;  hers  in  the  fault  and  folly  as  in  the 
beauty  and  the  brilliance  of  his  nature ;  still  hers, 


324  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

for  still  he  loved  her:  nothing  could  snatch  that 
from  her, — her  one  sure  fact,  abiding  calm  above 
the  gusty  weather  of  her  life.  Philip  loved  her : 
let  the  rest  go.  Why  should  she  fret? 

"It  will  all  come  right,"  she  said,  letting  her 
hand  drop  reticently  into  his.  "  There  are  two  of 
us,  Philip,  to  try  again." 

She  was  glad  to  see  him  catch  the  glow  of  her 
strong  spirit  so  quickly.  She  smiled  when  he  got 
up  nervously,  and  walked  the  room,  calculating  the 
expenses  of  the  European  trip.  It  pleased  her  bet- 
ter, she  said  to  herself,  than  if  he  had  staid  where 
he  was,  and  stopped  to  fondle  to  her.  And  she 
never  told  him,  when,  her  strained  nerves  being  too 
receptive,  she  caught  the  headaches  which  she  had 
cured. 

She  threw  herself  down  wearily,  and  watched  him. 
She  thought  she  could  never  have  noticed  before 
that  uncertain  curve  in  his  delicate  lips  ;  perhaps  that 
little  something  in  the  shape  of  his  head,  which  had 
always  troubled  her  —  was  it  a  deficiency  in  the 
organ  of  tenderness?  either  the  cause  or  the  effect, 
as  Lavater  would  have  put  it,  of  some  weakness  in 
the  nature  ?  Ah,  well !  Poor  Philip !  Her  heart 
assumed  a  new  burden,  as  if  a  third  child  had  been 
born  unto  her.  Was  it  possible  that  her  soul  had  ever 
gone  upon  its  knees  before  the  nature  of  this  man? 
So  gentle  had  been  the  stages  by  which  her  great 
passion  had  grown  into  a  mournful  compassion,  her 
divine  ideal  become  this  unheroic  human 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  325 

the  king  of  her  heart  become  the  dependent  on  its 
care,  —  so  quietly  this  had  come  about,  that,  in  the 
first  distinct  recognition  of  it  all,  she  felt  no  shock  ; 
only  a  stern,  sad  strain  upon  the  muscle  of  her 
nature.  There  was,  indeed,  a  certain  manhood  in 
her  —  it  is  latent  in  every  woman,  and  assumes 
various  forms.  Avis  possessed  it  only  in  a  differing 
degree,  not  in  differing  kind,  from  most  other  women, 
—  an  instinct  of  strength,  or  an  impulse  of  protection, 
which  lent  its  shoulders  spontaneously  to  the  increas- 
ing individuality  of  her  burden. 

She  spoke  to  her  husband  out  of  a  deepening  self- 
restraint,  down  whose  solitary  corridors  she  did  not 
suffer  herself  to  look  too  closely.  She  bowed  to 
the  great  and  awful  law  of  married  story,  by  which, 
so  surely  as  life  and  love  shall  one  day  wear  them- 
selves to  death  and  calm,  we  ma}r  know  that  it  shall 
befall  the  stronger  to  wear  the  yoke  of  the  weaker 
soul. 

But  late  that  night,  when  the  wind  was  high  about 
the  house,  and  the  firelight,  djing,  flung  wild  shapes 
upon  the  walls,  Avis  got  up,  and  went  into  the  little 
room  where  her  children  were,  to  think  it  all  over 
alone  with  them.  She  could  not  sleep.  The  shadow 
of  their  disordered  future,  of  her  own  dishonored 
aspiration,  of  bedraggled  ideals,  of  clambering  fears, 
sat  heavily  upon  her.  Her  thought  flickered  con- 
fusedly, now  upon  her  own  unfitness  for  the  cares  of 
motherhood,  now  upon  the  lapse  of  time  before  they 
should  have  Van's  school-bills  to  pay.  Then  as  the 


326  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

child  stirred,  coughing  slightty,  she  must  sit  mourn- 
ing about  it,  and  wondering  what  else  he  had  inher- 
ited from  his  father  besides  his  delicate  lungs.  Then 
her  imagination  flew  like  a  bird  into  a  clouded  sun- 
rise, across  the  future  of  her  little  daughter.  She 
turned  from  one  little  face  to  the  other  ;  she  gathered 
them  under  her  knotted  arms  half  savagely,  as  if  she 
would  shut  them  in  from  the  chance  of  this  awful 
gift  called  life,  which  she  had  imposed  upon  them. 
It  seemed  to  her  a  kind  of  mortal  sin  that  she  should 
have  bestowed  upon  her  children  a  father  whom 
she  might  not  bid  them  kneel  to  worship.  She 
felt  a  sense  of  personal  guilt  for  every  pain  or  peril 
that  was  in  store  for  these  two  poor  little  confid- 
ing creatures —  her  children,  their  children  —  to  be 
reared  in  a  sick  and  poor  and  struggling,  and  per- 
haps (Heaven  only  knew)  an  inharmonious  home. 

"Nothing  can  make  this  right,"  she  said,  and 
fell  upon  her  knees  beside  them,  constrained  by 
that  mute  prayer  without  ceasing,  through  which  all 
lofty  motherhood  draws  the  breath  of  its  strong  life. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  327 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

"  The  effects  of  weakness  are  inconceivable,  and  I  maintain  that 
they  are  far  vaster  than  those  of  the  most  violent  passions."— CAR- 
DINAL DE  RET/. 

"  Ce  temps  oil  le  bonheur  brille  et  soudain  s'efface, 
Comme  un  sourire  interrompu ! "  —  VICTOB,  HUGO. 

IT  is  said  that  Greenland,  five  or  six  centuries 
ago,  was  temperate.  Parts  of  Siberia  were  once 
mild.  Sulphur  past  the  point  of  fusion,  at  a  higher 
degree  of  temperature,  consolidates  again. 

Perhaps  most  married  people  reach  a  point  where, 
for  the  time  being,  they  consider  their  union  with 
each  other  to  be  the  greatest  mistake  of  their  lives. 
Fortunate  are  they  who  pass  this  period,  as  the 
younger  and  more  irritable  passion  may,  within  a 
year  or  two  after  the  wedding-day.  It  is  the  slowly 
growing  divergence,  as  it  is  the  slowly  gathering  at- 
traction, which  is  to  be  feared.  That  tether  galls 
most  terribly  from  which  the  satin  surface  is  longest 
in  wearing  down. 

Avis  and  Philip  Ostrander  had  been  married  three 
years  and  a  half. 

She  was  thinking  of  this  one  night  rather  sadly, 
more  leisurely  indeed  than  she  might  often  think  of 
any  thing  in  that  careworn  summer.  Beneath  the 
pressure  of  their  increasing  anxieties  and  the  more 


328  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

clamorous  strain  of  the  nursery,  her  elastic  strength 
had  at  length  surrendered.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  she  had  been  dangerously  ill. 

Stung  with  the  immediate  needs  of  their  position, 
in  the  heart  of  July  she  had  put  the  new-born  baby 
off  her  knee,  and  gone  up  into  the  hot  attic  studio 
to  finish  a  portrait.  Then  came  the  old  and  common- 
place story :  any  woman  knows  it.  Why  the  chil- 
dren must  needs  select  that  precise  time  to  have  the 
whooping-cough?  why  the  cook  must  get  married 
the  week  before  Commencement?  why  Philip  must 
just  then  and  there  have  an  attack  of  pleurisy  ?  why 
the  New- York  relatives,  unheard  of  for  years,  should 
come  swarming  in  on  class-day?  why  she  herself 
should  come  down  with  diphtheria  the  evening  that 
Philip's  resignation  was  accepted?  —  such  questions 
eternity  alone  can  be  long  enough  to  answer  to  the 
satisfaction  of  some  of  us.  A  fig  for  the  mysteries 
of  fate,  free-will,  foreknowledge  absolute,  the  origin 
of  species  or  pre-Adamic  man !  when  in  teeth  of  it 
all,  flat  comes  the  professor  with  rheumatism,  and 
aunt  Chloe  even  cannot  be  spared  to  High  Street. 

It  was  very  kind  in  Barbara  Allen  to  make  the 
offer.  Really,  there  was  no  one  else  to  be  had.  And 
Barbara  was  alwa}Ts  kind  :  she  certainly  had  a  genius 
for  the  sick-room,  as  Philip  and  Avis  agreed.  Avis 
accepted  the  attention  gratefully,  dropped  her  house- 
hold in  Barbara's  hands  as  gladly  as  the  escaping 
soul  may  drop  the  d}'ing  bod}T,  and  proceeded  imme- 
diately to  be  as  ill  as  she  knew  how.  Her  sickness 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  329 

was  characteristically  intense,  and  culminated  rap- 
idly. Stirring  one  clay,  out  of  the  famine  of  exhaus- 
tion which  renders  that  disease,  when  fatal,  a  pecu- 
liar prolongation  of  the  agony  of  dissolution,  she 
caught  an  expression  upon  her  husband's  face  which 
absolutely  aroused  her. 

"  Philip,"  she  said,  "  am  I  going  to  die?  " 

"  Oh,  God  knows!"  he  had  cried,  before  he 
could  be  silenced.  Avis  had  not  thought  of  it  be- 
fore. She  lay  a  few  moments  perfectly  quiet.  She 
did  not,  —  like  that  great  creature  to  whom  late 
happiness  brought  an  early  death,  to  whose  genius 
love  was  superadded,  only  that  both  might  mercifully 
sleep  before  the  conflict  of  ages  should  befall  which 
has  set  these  two  at  odds  in  women,  —  she  did  not 
cry  out,  — 

"  God  will  not  separate  us,  we  have  been  so 
happij!" 

No,  not  that. 

Afterwards  she  remembered  that  she  did  not 
think  about  her  husband  at  all.  In  one  supreme 
moment  the  whole  future  of  two  motherless  chil- 
dren passed  before  her.  One  of  those  clairvoyant 
flashes  which  sometimes  seem  to  make  motherhood 
a  form  of  prophecy,  flared  out  across  these  uncon- 
scious lives  for  whose  creation  she  was  responsible. 
Oddly  enough  the  thing  presented  itself  to  her  in 
isolated  pictures,  as  if  she  had  been  turning  the 
leaves  of  an  illustrated  book.  She  saw  Van  —  a 
large  bo}r  in  jackets  that  did  not  fit  —  coming  home 


330  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

with  his  rubber-boots  wet:  nobody  told  him  to 
change  them,  'so  he  had  the  lung-fever;  and  the 
nursing  was  poor,  so  he  got  the  cough. 

As  distinctly,  she  saw  him  skulking  in  from  col- 
lege one  night  (a  moonlit  night)  ;  he  swore  as  he 
came  up  the  steps  ;  there  was  something  wrong,  but 
he  did  not  tell  his  father.  Van  would  never  confide 
in  his  father.  Then  she  saw  her  little  daughter. 
Avis  was  sure  that  she  knew  what  her  daughter  was 
like,  before  the  child  was  a  week  old,  —  a  reticent, 
solitary  little  girl,  hating  her  patchwork,  always 
down  by  the  sea  ;  as  full  of  dreams  as  a  dark  night, 
and  as  impenetrable,  —  her  daughter,  brought  up  by 
another  woman.  There  probably  would  be  a  step- 
mother. Rather  a  pretty  woman,  Avis  thought  she 
would  be  (Philip's  taste  was  fastidious),  well-bred 
and  a  little  dressy,  a  member  of  a  Harmouth  read- 
ing-club, but  without  a  career ;  probably  her  bread 
would  always  rise ;  and  she  would  turn  the  studio 
into  an  excellent  lumber-room,  with  every  thing  done 
up  in  camphor,  and  carefully  shaken  twice  a  year  on 
account  of  the  moths. 

"  Doctor,"  she  repeated,  "is  it  death  that  is  the 
matter  with  me?  "  The  baby,  as  her  mother  spoke, 
began  to  cry  from  the  adjoining  room  ;  not  cross!}', 
as  the  boy  used  to,  but  with  a  low,  confiding  wail. 
Avis  could  never  be  impatient  with  her  little  girl's 
cry.  Van,  too,  came  trotting  up  vociferously,  de- 
manding, behind  the  sick-room  door,  to  be  let  in 
and  ask  mamma  why  he  couldn't  get  the  kitty 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  331 

through  the  ice-cream  freezer.  His  voice,  as  his 
father  hushed  him,  died  away  rebelliously;  A  sin- 
gular upheaval  of  the  moral  nature  seemed  to  Avis 
to  take  place  in  herself;  something  stronger,  be- 
cause more  vital  than  the  revolt  of  the  will  or  the 
physical  recoil  against  death.  Her  children  assumed 
the  form  of  awful  claims  upon  her  conscience  ;  they 
presented  a  code  to  her,  absolute,  imperious,  inte- 
gral with  the  law  of  God. 

"It  is  wicked  "  she  said  aloud,  "  it  is  wicked  for 
the  mother  of  two  little  children  —  babies  —  to  die. 
Doctor,  3^ou  should  have  told  me  I  was  in  danger  of 
committing  such  a  mistake.  I  will  not  do  it.  Do 
you  understand  ?  I  will  not  die  !  Call  in  my  hus- 
band. Tell  him  to  kneel  down  there  and  pray. 
God  understands  about  this.  It  is  my  duty  to 
live." 

Magnificently  she  set  herself  moment  by  moment 
to  conquer  death.  She  counted  the  dropping  of  the 
medicine  which  she  could  not  swallow,  the  passing 
of  her  pulse,  the  beating  of  her  heart,  the  ticking  of 
the  watch.  She  cast  the  whole  force  of  her  nature 
upon  that  die.  Her  will  rang  iron  to  the  crisis. 
She  repeated  at  intervals,  — 

"  It  is  my  duty  to  live." 

She  continued  the  struggle  for  three  days,  grow- 
ing weaker.  On  the  fourth  she  swallowed  brandy ; 
on  the  next  her  medicine;  beef-juice  on  the  next. 
Every  physician  knows  such  cases.  "  The  soul 
makes  her  own  body,"  said  the  great  physician 
Stahl. 


33.2  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Avis  recovered  rapidly. 

Perhaps  the  inevitable  re-actions  of  convalescence 
told  more  heavily  upon  Ostrander  than  upon  most 
people.  His  mercurial  sensitiveness  to  discomforts 
rose  as  the  excitement  of  danger  ebbed.  The  anno}'- 
ances  of  sickness  acted  upon  him  like  cologne  upon 
a  blooded  dog.  (If  any  reader  fail  to  understand  the 
force  of  this  simile,  let  him  put  the  experiment  in 
practice.)  Ostrander  had  never  been  able  to  remain 
within  hearing  of  the  children's  cough.  Once  when 
the  boy  was  ill,  long  ago,  worn  with  watching,  Avis 
had  asked  him  to  take  the  baby  a  while.  He  said, 
"Oh,  certainly !  "  and  paced  the  floor  with  Master 
Van,  who  was  black  in  the  face  with  vocal  disappro- 
bation of  the  arrangements,  for  half  an  hour.  Then 
Avis  heard  Philip  say  through  his  clinched  teeth,  — 

"  ril  get  a  nurse  for  this  child  to-morrow,  if  it 
costs  twelve  dollars  a  week." 

She  never  asked  him  to  take  the  babies  again. 

On  this  particular  night,  when  it  occurred  to  Avis 
to  lie  thinking  just  how  long  they  had  been  married, 
he  had  come  up  after  tea  and  said,  — 

"  Nicely  to-night,  Avis?  "     And  she  had  said,  — 

"  Thank  you,  Philip  !  "     And  he  had  asked,  — 

"If  we  leave  the  doors  open,  will  it  not  rest  you 
to  hear  a  little  music  before  I  go  out?  "  And  she 
had  repeated,  — 

"  Thank  you,  Philip  !  "    And  then  he  had  said,  — 

"  Pellet  makes  a  mistake  using  so  much  camphor 
in  your  case,"  and  had  kissed  her  forehead,  and 
gone  away. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  333 

She  tore  the  bandage  off  her  throat  when  he  had 
gone.  Philip  was  always  fastidious  about  scents  ;  no 
wonder  this  kept  him  out  of  the  sick-room  so  much. 
She  felt  a  little  solitary,  listening  to  Barbara's  fine 
execution  down  stairs,  as  the  twilight  came  on.  But 
she  was  glad  and  grateful  to  have  Philip  amused. 
Barbara  was  playing  the  "Adelaide,"  then  the 
operas ,  < l  Trovatore , ' '  "Lucia , "  "  Faust . ' '  Every 
thing  she  touched  to-night  had  the  sway  of  famil- 
iarity :  every  thing  was  full  of  arias,  of — it  was  not 
easy  to  say  what.  Barbara  was  not  a  woman  of 
strong  emotions.  She  possessed,  however,  abundant 
sensitiveness  to  strong  effects. 

Avis  thought  how  long  it  was  since  her  husband 
had  asked  her  to  play  to  him.  She  remembered  the 
day  when  he  said  beneath  his  breath,  — 

"  What  a  touch  !" 

But  now  Barbara  had  begun  to  sing.    She  sang,  — 

"  Oh !  dinna  ye  mind,  young  man,  she  said, 

When  the  red  wine  ye  were  spillin', 
How  ye  made  the  cup  gae  round  and  round, 
An  slighted  Barbara  Allen  ?" 

Barbara  was  still  playing,  when,  pliant  to  the  quiet 
temper  of  -returning  strength,  Avis  fell  asleep. 
When  she  waked,  it  was  late,  and  the  house  was 
still. 

The  door  was  open  into  the  hall.  Philip,  in  com- 
ing up,  must  have  forgotten  it.  He  usually  came  in, 
but,  now  that  she  was  so  much  better,  sometimes 
merely  looked  in,  on  his  way  to  the  little  blue  room 


334  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

which  he  occupied.  Avis  rose  to  shut  the  door :  as 
she  did  so,  she  glanced  at  her  watch.  It  was  two 
o'clock. 

The  gas  in  the  hall  was  still  lighted ;  and  they 
could  not  afford  to  waste  gas  in  these  days.  Think- 
ing it  a  pity  to  wake  the  nurse,  and  feeling  her 
strength  rather  rising  than  falling  with  the  exertion, 
Avis  flung  over  her  wrapper  a  shawl,  —  the  carmine 
one,  — folding  it  about  her  face  and  head,  and  crept 
along,  hand  over  hand  upon  the  balusters,  clinging 
with  care.  Her  bare  feet  made  no  sound  upon  the 
carpeted  stairs :  not  a  board  creaked  beneath  her 
tread  she  noticed,  as  she  crawled  down. 

Half  way  down  the  stairs,  she  was  surprised  to 
hear  the  sound  of  a  voice,  low  and  irregularly  artic- 
ulate ;  no  —  voices — two.  The  sound  came  from  the 
parlor ;  and  then  she  saw  that  the  parlor-door,  too, 
was  open,  and  that  the  room  was  still  lighted  like 
the  hall. 

She  was  for  the  moment  slightly  startled.  There 
was  usually  a  little  tramp  and  burglar  panic  in  Har- 
mouth  in  the  early  autumn  nights,  and  usually  with 
some  reason.  Then  she  remembered  that  Philip 
had  said  something  of  an  appointment  with  an  Eng- 
lishman, with  a  notion  about  making  telegraphy 
subservient  to  audible  speech.  But  she  crept  on  to 
make  quite  sure  and  safe,  staggering  a  little,  holding 
by  the  wall,  and  so  into  the  doorway. 

It  was  not  the  Englishman. 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  335 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

PRO  :  "  How  long  remained  the  fickle  true  to  thee?  " 
EPI:  Her  vision  still  is  true :  'tis  ever  near  me." 

GOETHE'S  PANDORA. 

BARBARA  ALLEN  sat  on  the  piano-stool,  lean- 
ing backward,  one  elbow  upon  the  music-rack, 
and  the  poise  of  her  pleasant  figure  resting  upon  the 
bruised  white  ke}Ts. 

The  sheets  of  music  lay  scattered  about ;  one  or 
two  had  fallen  to  the  floor  :  they  lay  with  disordered 
leaves.  A  hand  surprised  by  some  momentary  dis- 
turbance would  have  dropped  them  so.  Barbara's 
touch  was  habitually  self-possessed ;  that  of  few 
women  more  so.  Barbara's  head  was  bent.  Her 
bronze  curls  fell  against  her  cheek,  sweeping  clean 
that  fine  profile  from  the  comb  to  the  curve  of  the 
neck.  There  were  traces  of  agitation  upon  her  face. 

Philip  Ostrander  sat  beside  her.  He  had  drawn 
his  chair,  so  that  its  edge  and  the  edge  of  the  piano- 
stool  collided.  The  hardly-acquired  housekeeper's 
impulse  in  Avis  noticed  this,  even  at  that  moment, 
and  she  thought  how  the  varnish  was  getting  rubbed. 

One  of  Ostrander 's  arms  was  stretched  out,  his 
hand  resting  upon  the  bass  keys.  It  could  not  be 
strictly  said'  that  it  encircled  Barbara's  waist ;  but 
there  was  no  back  to  the  piano-stool,  and  Barbara 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

was  tired.  In  his  other  hand  he  held,  alas  !  he  held 
her  own.  There  were  dimples  in  Barbara's  fingers ; 
she  had  cool,  clear-cut,  conscious  nails.  She  had 
put  her  hand  in  Ostrander's,  so  that  the  profile  of 
the  thumb  and  first  finger  was  presented  to  view  ;  a 
constitutional  amendment  on  nature,  which  a  hand 
not  altogether  of  the  smallest  may  surely  find  legiti- 
mate. Nature  had  as  yet  suffered  no  such  surprise 
in  Barbara  as  to  enable  her  to  forget  this  ;  but  then 
Barbara  had  never  allowed  a  man  to  hold  her  hand 
before. 

Ostrander's  eyes  were  fastened  upon  Barbara's 
face.  They  wore  the  look  which  a  woman  accus- 
tomed to  the  admiration  of  men  would  feel,  whether 
through  the  lid  of  her  eye  or  her  coffin.  You  think 
you  can  watch  a  woman  as  you  will,  sir,  because 
she  happens  to  be  at  the  other  end  of  the  room? 
transfigured  in  conversation  with  the  hostess  ?  netted 
in  the  labyrinth  of  a  crocheted  shawl-strap  ?  up  to 
the  ears  of  her  soul  in  the  poem  or  the  sonata? 
promising  the  next  polka  to  your  rival?  or  adoring 
the  Tintoretto,  with  her  cool,  round  shoulders  to  you? 
Do  you  fancy  that  you  can  lift  an  eyelash  that  she 
will  not  know  it,  any  more  than  you  can  pass  a  com- 
ment on  the  weather  that  she  will  not  hear  ? 

Barbara's  lashes  swept  her  flushed  cheek ;  but 
she  would  have  seen  Ostrander's  look  through  her 
back-hair. 

Ostrander's  face  wore  a  peculiar  illumination 
when  he  admired  any  thing,  —  a  statue,  a  picture, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  337 

or  a  woman.  The  corners  of  his  mouth  quivered  a 
little,  and  his  lips  parted  in  a  smile  beside  whose 
silent  homage  a  spoken  word  would  have  seemed  a 
definite  rudeness.  There  was  a  refined,  cool  light  in 
his  eye,  too,  which  Barbara  exceedingly  admired. 
She  had  never  seen  a  man  look  just  like  that.  His 
whole  bearing  was  that  of  one  swayed  by  a  delicate 
intoxication,  in  which  all  that  was  noblest,  calmest, 
and  most  permanent  in  himself,  deferred  to  the  ob- 
ject which  had  excited  it. 

It  was  this  look  which  his  wife  —  years  past,  now, 
there  in  the  garden-studio,  when  the  apple-blossoms 
fell  about  them  —  used  to  surprise,  looking  up  sud- 
denly from  her  painting ;  and  then  sit  lifting  her 
beautiful  head  gravely  beneath  it.  It  was  this  look 
which  his  wife  surprised  now. 

Philip  Ostrander  was  called  a  man  of  great  dis- 
cretion in  his  relations  to  women.  It  is  doubtful  if 
his  most  wayward  fancy  had  ever  betrayed  him  into 
a  positive  social  imprudence  before.  —  What,  then, 
would  he  have  done  with  Barbara's  hand? 

When  Avis  saw  him  lift  it,  prisoned  there  like  a 
bird  against  his  leaning  shoulder,  she  stirred,  and 
would  have  uttered  his  name.  Her  lips  made  no 
sound  ;  but  her  trailing  dress  rustled  upon  the  floor. 
Barbara  started.  Philip  turned  slowly  around. 

His  wife  in  the  doorway,  haggard  from  her  mortal 
sickness,  stood  colossal.  She  was  paler,  perhaps, 
than  need  be,  in  that  red  drapery.  She  gathered  it, 
for  it  had  fallen  almost  to  her  knee,  in  one  hand. 


338  THE  STORY  OP  AVIS. 

The  other  was  thrust  into  the  empty  air.  She  had 
never  reminded  him  of  her  great  Venus  as  she  did  at 
that  moment.  In  the  blind  action  of  her  arm  and 
figure  was  something  of  the  same  shrinking  as  of  a 
creature  from  whom  a  shield  had  been  torn  away. 
The  real  or  fancied  similarity  in  her  features,  too, 
was  emphasized  by  the  way  she  held  her  head. 

Ity  degrees  her  pallor  deepened  dreadfully.  Her 
features  seemed  to  grow  thin  and  sheer  like  a  marble 
medallion  of  a  spirit. 

Philip  Ostrander  looked  from  her  to  Barbara's 
curls  ;  and  his  eyes  dropped  like  a  falling  star. 

Barbara  drew  away  her  hand  swiftly.  He  would 
not  have  had  her  do  this :  it  was  an  implication 
which,  he  began  angrily  to  say  to  himself,,  the  cir- 
cumstances did  not  call  for.  He  roused  himself  at 
this,  and  said  in  his  easy  way, — 

"  Why,  Avis!" 

But  Barbara  said  nothing. 

Avis  also  said  nothing  —  nothing  at  all.  She 
advanced  a  step  or  two  into  the  room,  and  in  silence 
pointed  to  the  little  Egyptian  clock  upon  the  mantel- 
piece, whose  bronze  sphinx  told  the  hour,  —  seven 
minutes  past  two  o'clock.  With  the  other  hand  she 
pointed  to  the  door. 

Barbara  arose  at  once.  She  said  she  had  no  idea 
it  was  so  late  ;  she  muttered  something  about  being 
very  sorry,  and  that  she  was  afraid  Avis  would  take 
cold.  Barbara  had  never  got  into  such  a  strait 
before.  She  was  frightened. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  339 

Avis  did  not  stir  when  Barbara  left  the  room,  but 
stood,  still  pointing  with  a  grand  sweep  of  her  arm 
to  the  open  door.  Perhaps  never  in  her  youth  and 
joy  and  color  had  she  possessed  more  beauty  than 
at  that  moment.  It  is  undeniable,  explain  it  as  you 
will,  that  Ostrander's  most  conscious  emotion  just 
then  was  one  of  overpowering  admiration  for  his 
wife.  He  felt  a  kind  of  terrible  taunting  pride  in 
her.  He  did  not  believe  there  was  another  such 
woman  in  the  world.  He  could  have  flung  himself 
at  her  feet,  if  he  had  dared. 

His  eyes,  as  hers  transfixed  them,  seemed  suddenly 
to  reel ;  then  came  on  their  dead,  dense  look.  He  ap- 
peared to  watch  her  from  a  vast  distance  like  a  being 
from  another  sphere ;  as  a  dumb  animal  watches  a 
human  face ;  or  the  victim  of  some  pitiable  mania 
regards  the  sane. 

"  Don't  be  offended  over  a  little  thing,  Avis,"  he 
began,  collecting  himself,  stumbling  into  the  weakest 
thing  he  could  have  said. 

He  wished  hotly  that  she  would  have  burst  into 
reproaches,  accusations,  into  a  passion  of  repulse  or 
rebuke.  The  woman  who  does  this  puts  herself  at 
radical  disadvantage  with  most  men.  Perhaps, 
mingled  with  the  unworthy  consciousness  of  this 
little  psychological  fact,  a  nobler  impulse  stirred  in 
Ostrander's  heart.  Perhaps  he  knew  that  he  de- 
served the  worst  she  could  have  given,  and  it  might 
have  been  a  certain  relief  to  him  just  then,  to  get 
what  he  deserved. 


340  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

But  Avis  answered  him  not  a  word.  Her  lip 
curled  slightly,  —  his  wife's  lip,  —  curled  above  him 
as  she  stood  looking  down.  A  single  articulate  syl- 
lable would  have  broken  the  exquisite  edge  of  her 
scorn  ;  but  she  did  not  utter  it.  He  felt  under  her 
silence  as  men  may  under  crucifixion,  which  does 
not  permit  the  victim  even  to  writhe. 

"  You  are  making  a  mountain  out  of  a  mole-hill," 
he  said  irritably,  rising  with  his  fugitive  look,  deter- 
mined to  put  an  end  to  this  dumb  and  dangerous 
scene;  "and  it  is  a  terrible  imprudence  for  you 
to  be  here  in  the  cold.  You  will  have  a  relapse  to- 
morrow. Let  me  help  you  up  the  stairs." 

Advancing,  he  put  out  both  hands,  and  would 
have  touched,  supporting  her.  But  Avis,  with  a 
slight,  imperious  gesture,  waved  him  away. 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "have  it  as  you  will." 
He  stood  to  watch  her  from  the  bottom  of  the  stairs, 
anxious  for  her,  till  he  should  see  her  safely  up. 
She  had  swept  by  him  with  a  certain  strength,  but 
tottered  on  the  first  stair.  He  sprang  and  caught 
her ;  held  her  for  one  moment  so  impetuously,  that 
his  trained  ear  detected  the  irregular,  sluggish  beat- 
ing of  her  heart,  — a  paratytic  beat.  It  alarmed  him, 
and  he  said  hurriedly,  — 

"  You  are  not  fit  to  get  up  by  yourself.  Don't  be 
so  hard  on  a  man,  Avis  !  " 

But  she  disengaged  herself,  and  crawled  up  alone. 
He  followed  at  a  little  distance  to  catch  her,  if  she 
fell.  Thus  they  reached  the  landing ;  and  she  went 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  341 

on  into  the  faded  rose-red  room,  and  shut  the  door. 
The  wind  was  rising  as  she  went  in.  She  crawled 
weakly  into  bed,  and  lay  with  her  hands  crossed,  lis- 
tening to  it.  It  blew  all  night  fitfully,  like  the  re- 
solve of  some  great  live,  lawless  nature  ;  but  it  rose 
perceptibly  from  hour  to  hour.  Towards  morning 
it  lulled. 

In  the  morning  aunt  Chloe  came  over,  and  Barbara 
sent  up  word,  that,  if  she  could  be  spared,  perhaps 
she  had  better  go  home.  Avis  replied  that  she 
should  like  to  see  her.  Barbara  came  awkwardly 
enough.  She  had  been  crying,  and  her  front-hair 
was  out  of  crimp.  Avis  looked  at  her  with  gaunt, 
insomniac  eyes :  it  was  evident  that  she  had  not 
slept,  but  she  was  quite  at  ease.  She  thanked  Bar- 
bara for  all  her  kindness,  and  bade  her  a  grave 
good-by. 

Barbara  looked  sullen  for  a  minute  ;  then  a  quiver 
ran  through  the  bronze  curls.  She  began  to  sob. 

u  Pray  don't,"  said  Avis  wearily.  "  I  am  not 
quite  strong  enough  —  to  —  see  people  cry.  But  I 
understand  your  feeling.  It  is  so  dangerous  for  a 
woman  to  commit  an  indecorum  !  Society  does  not 
excuse  her  as  it  does  a  man.  Will  you  ask  aunt 
Chloe  to  bring  the  children  up?  " 

Avis  spoke  gently.  A  certain  terror  fell  upon  her 
at  finding  in  her  own  heart  no  sting  sharper  than 
that  of  a  sad  scorn.  She  had  rather  hoped  that  she 
might  find  herself  a  little  jealous  of  Barbara.  She 
hung  over  her  love  for  her  husband  as  we  hang  over 


342  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

a  precious,  diseased  life,  of  which  we  have  not  the 
courage  to  despair.  She  fanned  it  wildly.  Better 
fire  than  frost !  Better  the  seething  than  the  freez- 
ing death  !  But  all  her  soul  was  numb.  She  looked 
calmly  at  Barbara's  curls  and  fresh  maiden  colors 
and  attitudes.  She  could  not  be  jealous  of  so  slight 
a  thing.  With  a  sickening  dismay  she  perceived 
that  Philip  —  he  too  —  began  to  seem  to  her  small 
and  far,  like  a  figure  seen  in  the  valley  of  an  incoher- 
ent dream.  She  felt  as  if  she  had  suddenly  stepped 
into  a  world  of  pygmies,  and  had  a  liliputian  code  to 
learn  before  she  could  take  up  the  duties  of  citizen- 
ship therein. 

Barbara  stopped  crying.  She  stole  down  stairs 
with  dry,  startled  eyes.  An  indecorum  f  Society? 
Excuse?  Barbara  repeated  the  words  confusedly. 
Two  weeks  ago  she  would  have  regarded  the  suppo- 
sition that  any  human  lip  would  ever  tell  her  she 
had  been  indecorous,  with  a  pleasant  unconcern,  like 
that  with  which  she  regarded  the  habits  of  the  cave- 
men, or  the  subject  of  unconscious  cerebration. 
Barbara  thought  she  ought  to  see  Philip  Ostrander 
at  once,  and  ask  him  if  he  thought  any  harm  was 
done.  But  he  was  in  the  study,  and  the  door  was 
locked.  When  he  came  out,  he  asked  where  she 
was,  and  his  little  boy  told  him  she  had  gone. 

Now,  Barbara  forgot  to  take  her  sun-umbrella.  It 
was  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  before  Ostrander 
saw  it  —  a  pretty  purple  silk  toy  —  hanging  by  the 
clutch  of  a  little  ivoiy  hand  upon  the  hat- tree.  Os- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  343 

trander  saw  it,  and  thought  he  had  better  carry  it 
over  to  her :  he  must  walk  somewhere.  Under  the 
circumstances  it  would  be  more  fitting  that  Barbara 
should  not  come  for  it ;  it  would  be  pleasanter,  in  • 
deed,  for  Avis,  he  said  to  himself:  and  Avis  had 
expressed  no  wish  to  see  him  to-day.  He  put  on 
his  hat  and  strolled  out,  carrying  the  parasol.  A 
delicate  perfume  hung  about  it,  something  that  he 
had  never  known  any  woman  but  Barbara  to  use : 
he  remembered  that  he  fancied  it  when  she  was 
taking  care  of  that  gunshot  wound.  Barbara  had 
certainly  been  very  kind  to  them  both.  It  was  not 
right  that  his  wife's  over-scrupulousness  should  re- 
act unpleasantly  upon  her.  The  least  that  a  sense 
of  honor  demanded  of  him  now  was  to  see  to  it  that 
Barbara  should  not  in  any  manner  suffer  from  his 
folly.  If  he  did  not  guard  her,  nobody  would.  No 
man  with  a  spark  of  chivalry  in  him  would  allow 
the  woman  whom  he  had  so  unfortunately  drawn 
into  a  trifling  imprudence,  to  meet  the  consequences 
of  it  unwarned  or  unshared.  Then,  too,  he  would 
not  be  misunderstood  himself  in  the  affair,  if  he 
could  help  it.  If  he  had  said  any  thing  that  sounded 
indiscreet,  —  and  he  could  not  remember  that  he 
really  had,  — it  would  be  better  to  explain  to  Bar- 
bara precisely  what  he  did  mean :  there  should  be 
no  mistake  in  the  thing  anywhere.  There  was  no 
need  that  any  man  with  a  sound  head  should  get 
into  that  fog-bank  of  relations  in  which  men  and 
women  were  always  going  astray  for  simple  lack  of 


344  THE  STORY  OP  AVIS. 

a  clear  understanding  each  of  what  the  other 
wanted.  He  thought  the  sooner  he  had  a  talk  with 
Barbara  the  better. 

He  went  to  her  brother's  house,  and  she  presented 
herself  at  once  :  her  eyelids  were  still  delicately  dis- 
colored, like  rain-beaten  flowers,  with  tears.  Os- 
trander  did  not  go  in,  but  stood  in  the  hall,  hesitating. 
He  said,  — 

u  Here  is  }Tour  parasol."  And  Barbara  thanked 
him ;  and  then  there  was  an  awkward  pause. 

"  I  want  to  see  you  —  a  few  moments,"  said  Os- 
trander  gravely. 

"There  is  company  in  the  parlor,"  replied  Bar- 
bara, with  downcast  eyes. 

"It  is  pleasant  on  the  beach  this  afternoon," 
urged  Ostrander  impulsively.  It  did  not  seem  quite 
possible  now  to  go  home  without  seeing  Barbara 
alone. 

Barbara  said,  "  Just  as  you  like."  She  got  her 
hat,  and  they  went  out  in  silence  together  into  the 
hot  summer  afternoon. 

When  they  reached  the  beach,  he  said,  "  It  will  be 
cooler  on  the  water."  Nothing  but  common-places 
occurred  to  him. 

He  pushed  clown  the  boat,  —  his  wife's  little 
dory,  —  and  helped  Barbara  in.  She  slipped,  and 
he  caught  her,  but  neither  spoke :  she  released  her 
hands  slowly.  An  old  fisherman  stood  on  the  beach, 
hauling  his  dirty  boat,  with  a  rasping  noise,  across 
the  coarse  gray  sand. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  345 

"  I  wouldn't  put  up  that  there  sail  ef  I  was  yeou," 
he  said. 

"  And  why  not?  "  argued  Ostrander,  glad  to  have 
something  to  smile  at  just  then.  Avis  and  he  had 
always  differed  about  that  sail :  she  never  used  it. 

"  You  mought  as  well  put  spurs  onto  an  angel  as 
a  sail  onto  a  dory,"  observed  the  fisherman,  dogmat- 
ically moistening  his  hands  for  another  tug  at  his 
boat.  ;'  'Tain't  in  the  natur'  of  a  dory  to  stand  it : 
there's  natur'  in  boats  likewise  as  there's  natur'  in 
fishes  and  folks.  No  use  rowin'  agin  tide  in  none 
of  us.  A  dory,  now,  knows  what  she  wants  done  as 
clear  as  yeou  do,  or  the  lady.  Ef  I  was  yeou,  I 
wouldn't  cross  her." 

"  I  wouldn't,  either,"  said  Barbara. 

So  Ostrander  took  the  oars.  He  rowed  hard,  but 
composedly,  with  the  long,  virile  Harmouth  stroke. 
He  rowed  quite  into  the  heart  of  the  harbor ;  but 
few  boats  were  in  sight.  He  drew  in  his  oars,  and 
they  drifted  beneath  the  blazing  sky.  Barbara  put 
up  the  sun-umbrella,  and  they  sat  under  it  in  a  pur- 
ple light.  The  breeze  struck  pleasantly  across  the 
bay,  and  the  sun  dipped.  The  wind  lifted  one  of 
Barbara's  curls,  and  blew  it  softly  against  his  cheek. 
He  looked  at  her ;  but  she  did  not  return  his  look. 
She  sat  quite  still. 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  he  began,  and  stopped. 
What  in  the  name  of  reason  was  he  to  say  he  was 
sorry  for?  Barbara  came  to  his  aid.  She  turned 
her  head:  the  wind  was  at  her  back,  and  carried 


346  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

all  her  hair  forward,  so  that  her  face  looked  out  of  a 
soft  aureola.  She  said, — 

"  Avis  was  very  much  annoyed." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  answered  Ostrander  irritably. 

4 'Do  you  think,"  asked  Barbara  timidly,  "  that 
any — any  thing  unpleasant — any  harm  will  come  ?  " 

"  Harm  cannot  come  where  there  is  no  harm," 
said  Ostrander,  suddenly  remembering  that  this  was 
the  thing  to  say. 

"  Certainly  not,"  replied  Barbara  more  coura- 
geously. 

4  c  The  whole  world  is  welcome  to  hear  any  thing 
that  I  have  ever  said  to  you,  Miss  Barbara,"  he 
went  on  in  a  confident,  clear  tone. 

"  Why,  of  course,"  said  Barbara. 

It  seemed  for  the  moment  to  make  quite  sure  of 
it,  that  he  should  say  it,  and  that  she  should  assent 
to  it.  He  took  up  the  oars  with  a  sigh  of  relief, 
and  instinctively,  perhaps,  made  toward  the  shore, 
as  if  it  were  safer  to  let  this  scene  end  just  where  it 
was. 

The  tide,  while  they  drifted,  had  turned.  He 
rowed  a  few  minutes  in  the  hot  sun,  laboriously, 
and  then  laid  down  the  oars:  he  came  and  sat 
under  the  sun-umbrella.  Barbara's  face  looked  un- 
usualty  tender  in  the  purple  light.  Their  eyes  met. 
Necessarily  they  sat  so  near,  that  he  could  perceive 
the  agitated  fluctuation  of  her  breath. 

"  The  man  was  right,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone :  "  it 
is  of  no  use  to  row  against  the  tide." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  347 

"  Oh,  hush  !  "  said  Barbara. 

It  is  possible  to  say  a  very  dangerous  thing  in  a 
perfectly  safe  way.  Ostrander 's  readiness  both  of 
the  lip  and  of  the  fancy  at  once  exposed  and  pro- 
tected him  in  the  possession  of  this  perilous  power. 
When  he  said,  "It  is  of  no  use  to  row  against  the 
tide,"  he  certainly  was  not  altogether  thinking  of 
the  tides  of  Harmouth  Harbor.  But  when  Barbara 
not  only  perceived  that  he  was  not,  but  committed 
the  mistake  of  letting  him  know  that  she  perceived 
it,  he  fell  back  at  once  upon  the  literal  significance 
of  his  words.  Instinctively  he  had  provided  him- 
self with  a  barricade  of  such  significance.  If  one 
trench  had  failed,  he  would  have  withdrawn  to  an- 
other, strictly,  in  his  own  view  at  least,  on  terms 
of  honorable  retreat.  This  is  one  of  the  accidents 
liable  to  a  lithe  mind,  and  may  fasten  itself  upon  a 
nature  of  great  delicacy ;  in  rare  cases,  upon  one  of 
real  rectitude. 

Ostrander  regarded  Barbara  with  a  certain  gentle- 
manly surprise,  and  sajing  in  his  usual  voice, — 

"  However,  we  will  try  again,"  took  up  the  oars. 
But  the  tide  set  sternly  against  him,  and  he  per- 
ceived now  how  far  they  had  drifted.  His  friend 
the  fisherman  was  abreast  of  them :  he  sat  in  the 
sun,  hauling  out  his  nets,  still  as  a  figure  in  the  fore- 
ground of  a  marine  picture. 

"  With  your  permission,"  said  Ostrander  after  a 
few  minutes'  very  unplatonic  hard  work,  "  I  think 
we  will  put  up  the  sail.  There  is  not  wind  enough 
to  trouble  a  nautilus." 


348  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

He  put  it  up,  and  they  glided  along  quietly ;  the 
swifter  motion  at  once  rested  and  excited  him.  When 
Barbara  said,  How  pleasant  it  was !  his  deepening 
voice  and  eyes  answered,  — 

44 1  am  afraid  it  is  too  pleasant."  But  Barbara 
did  not  say,  "  Oh,  hush!  "  She  knew  better  this 
time. 

They  were  sitting  so,  she  leaning  over  the  gun- 
wale like  a  violet,  with  the  purple  light  across  her 
white  dress,  when  a  slight  stir  struck  the  perfectly 
calm  water,  as  if  the  feet  of  an  unseen  spirit  trod 
across  it.  Then  the  whole  bay  seemed  to  gather  her 
bright  shoulders,  and  shiver  a  little.  Then  the  near 
waves  crinkled  and  curdled,  as  flesh  does  with  fear. 

Ostrander  sprang  to  wrench  the  little  mast  out  of 
its  socket  just  as  the  dory  reeled.  He  was  too  late. 

As  he  went  down,  he  saw  the  fisherman  leaning, 
gunwale  to  the  water's  edge,  the  fine  lines  that  his 
black  net  made  against  the  sky,  and  the  wreath  of 
smoke  from  his  pipe.  Distinctly  he  thought  what  a 
good  sketch  Avis  would  make  of  it. 

Then  he  thought  how  the  bay  looked  like  a  lake  of 
blue  fire,  and  how  he  and  Barbara  were  going  into 
it  together.  The  last  thing  that  occurred  to  him 
was,  "  We  have  been  struck  by  a  white  squall." 

By  the  time  that  he  had  begun  to  ascend,  he  was 
not  conscious  of  any  coherent  idea,  except  that,  if  he 
and  Barbara  were  drowned,  then  and  there,  together, 
his  wife  would  believe  him  a  rascal  to  the  end  of  her 
life.  And  then  he  knew  that  the  mere  fact  of  d}ing 
was  only  an  incident  in  that  supreme  despair. 


THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS.  349 

He  struggled  up,  and  struck  out  madly.  Barbara 
was  clinging  to  the  bottom  of  the  dory.  She  was 
calling  to  him.  He  seemed  a  great  way  off.  The 
water  between  them — calm  now  as  outworn  feeling — 
was  a  cold  and  deadly  blue.  Once  more  he  thought 
of  the  lake  of  fire,  and  of  those  terrible  old  Bible 
metaphors  that  played  upon  it  in  such  a  ghastly  way. 

He  made  his  way  rather  weakly.  Who  would  have 
believed  that  the  blazing  summer  sea  could  hold  so 
cold  a  heart  ?  The  fisherman  was  coming  with  long, 
sharp,  agitated  strokes :  the  water  reeled  under  his 
blows.  Ostrander's  head  reeled  too.  He  was  grow- 
ing very  cold.  A  paralytic  thickening  of  the  ten- 
dons, and  stiffening  in  his  muscles,  had  crept  upon 
him. 

"  My  God  !  "  he  said  aloud,  "  am  I  going  to  have 
the  cramp?  " 

Then  the  boat  made  a  great  leap,  and  recoiled  on 
itself,  like  a  jaguar,  and  snatched  him  up. 

' '  You  took  me  before  the  lady !  ' '  cried  Ostran- 
der,  horror  struck. 

"  The  lady  doos  very  well !  "  said  he  of  the  sea 
imperturbably.  "As  long  as  they  can  screech, 
they  ain't  cramped.  Just  you  stay  where  you  be. 
You  mought  be  took  agin  —  and  she's  pretty  solid. 
I'll  haul  her  in." 

Barbara  was  hauled  in,  hand  over  hand,  like  a 
mackerel-net ;  the  dory  was  righted,  and  taken  in 
tow  —  possibly  the  whole  thing  had  taken  seven 
minutes.  The  fisherman  had  not  removed  the  pipe 
from  his  mouth. 


350  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Ostrander  and  Barbara  sat  awkwardly  and  miser- 
ably in  the  dirty  boat.  When  the  fish  flopped  in  the 
net,  and  an  eel,  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  jumped 
into  Barbara's  lap,  Ostrander  felt  as  if  he  were 
watching  the  blue-devils  in  the  last  act  of  some 
second-rate  opera.  The  purple  umbrella  was  gone. 
High  in  the  western  heavens  the  holy  sun  peered  into 
their  faces.  His  fastidious  fancy  revolted  from  this 
grotesque,  satiric  ending  to  a  highly-wrought  experi- 
ence. He  would  have  found  it  hard  to  explain  wlty 
he  felt  as  if  it  must  be,  somehow,  Barbara's  fault. 
He  could  not  imagine  his  wife,  for  instance,  in  the 
same  boat  with  an  eel.  At  all  events,  she  would 
not  have  shrieked  at  it.  He  was  surprised  to  find 
how  it  altered  Barbara's  appearance  to  have  her 
curls  washed  straight. 

The  fisherman  took  the  pipe  from  his  mouth  as 
they  grated  on  the  solitary  beach. 

"  Mebbe,"  he  said,  "  ye'll  remember  next  time 
not  to  hurt  the  feelins  of  a  dory.  A  dory's  like  a 
lady,  sir.  The  man  that  slights  it  has  to  pay  for  it 
fust  or  last.  She's  tender  in  the  feelins,  a  dory  is." 

He  had  landed  them,  as  chance  would  have  it,  just 
off  the  light-house  reef ;  and  Barbara  and  Ostrander 
walked  up  through  the  divorced  gorge  together. 
Barbara  did  not  understand  the  expression  which  his 
face  had  assumed.  She  thought  him  very  cross. 
He,  for  his  part,  was  not  thinking  about  Barbara  at 
all. 

He  and  Barbara  parted  miserably  enough,  at  the 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  351 

edge  of  the  town.  They  agreed  that  it  was  better 
so.  Barbara  protested  that  she  was  not  very  wet, 
and  preferred  to  take  care  of  herself.  When  he  said 
that  he  supposed  it  would  attract  less  attention,  she 
assented  decidedly.  She  said  she  was  sorry  they 
went  to  row.  She  asked  him  if  he  were  going  to  tell 
Avis.  Barbara  was  thoroughly  alarmed. 

Ostrander  went  quickly  home.  As  he  passed  his 
wife's  room,  she  called  him.  The  door  was  open. 
Avis  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  bed,  partly  dressed : 
she  had  thrown  a  thick  shawl  about  her,  and  her 
bare  feet,  with  which,  it  seemed,  she  had  been  trying 
her  strength,  hung  weakly,  just  touching  the  floor. 
Something  in  her  attitude  —  whether  it  were  the 
weakness  or  the  strength  of  it,  its  courage  or  despair 
—  affected  Ostrander  powerfully.  He  stopped  in 
the  door- way,  feeling  disgraced  and  miserable.  He 
did  not  cross  the  threshold  of  his  wife's  room.  She 
said  rapidly,  — 

"  What  has  happened,  Philip?" 

"  I  was  out  in  the  dory,  and  got  struck  by  a  white 
squall.  That  is  all,  except  that  I  had  the  cramp, 
and  a  mackerel-boat  picked  me  up." 

Ostrander  brought  the  words  out  stolidly.  He 
did  not  exactly  mean  to  appeal  to  her  fear  or  sym- 
pathy ;  yet  he  felt  conscious  of  some  disappointment 
that  she  exhibited  no  sign  of  either.  She  said, — 

« '  Was  Barbara  with  you  ? ' ' 

u  Yes,"  said  Ostrander  doggedly.  His  quick 
sense  of  irritation  rose.  He  was  not  going  to  stand 


352  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

and  defend  himself  like  a  school-boy.  There  was  a 
long  silence. 

"Well,"  he  said,  breaking  it  uneasily,  "  I  must 
go  and  get  out  of  these  wet  things." 

"  It  will  be  best  for  both  of  us,"  said  Avis  in  a 
low  voice,  after  yet  another  pause,  in  which  she  had 
sat  with  her  eyes  upon  the  floor,  but  rising  now,  and 
slipping  to  her  feet,  "  if  this  thing  is  to  go  on,  —  if 
you  wish  to  indulge  platonic  friendships  with  other 
women,  —  that  your  wife  should  not  be  unnecessarily 
insulted  by  it ;  you  would  agree  with  me,  I  am  sure, 
that  I  had  better  take  the  children,  and  go  to  father's 
for  awhile." 

When  he  was  gone,  she  crawled  back  into  bed. 
The  words  of  the  woman  Susan  Jessup  had  dogged 
her  thoughts  that  day:  "He  got  tired  of  me.  I 
thought  he  would  get  tired  of  every  other  woman." 
Oddly  beside  them  stepped  in  that  hideous  old 
rhyme  of  Goethe's, — 

"  The  false  one  looked  for  a  daintier  lot; 
The  constant  one  wearied  me  out  and  out." 

These  pursued  her  like  the  jingle  on  the  hand-organ 
that  follows  us  seven  squares  away.  She  hated  her 
own  heart  for  giving  hospitality  to  such  words. 

The  children  were  laughing  in  the  nursery.  Birds 
broke  their  hearts  for  joy  upon  the  window-ledge. 
She  shrank  as  she  listened,  turning  wearily  in  bed. 
All  sweet  sounds  in  life  seemed  to  have  fallen  sud- 
denly a  semi-tone  too  high  or  too  low  for  her,  so 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  353 

that  harmony  itself  became  an  exquisite  ingenuity 
of  discord.  She  seemed  to  herself  like  that  afflicted 
musician  to  whose  physical  ear  this  happened ;  or 
like  that  other,  who  stood  stone  deaf  in  the  middle 
of  his  orchestra. 

How  could  they  ever  hear  —  she  and  Philip  now 
—  the  perfect  music  of  a  happy  home  again  ? 

She  straggled  with  the  unique  dismay  which  over- 
takes the  woman  who  first  learns  that  she  has 
married  a  capricious  man.  Avis  thought,  that  if  her 
husband  had  committed  a  forgery,  or  been  brought 
home  drunk,  she  should  have  seen  more  distinctly, 
at  least  more  clearly,  where  her  duty  lay.  She  was 
sure  that  she  should  have  gone  on  loving  him,  in 
fierce  proportion  to  the  depth  of  his  fall,  till  death 
had  resolved  all  love  to  elements  so  simple,  that  it 
knew  no  code  of  fluty,  and  needed  no  spoken  bond. 
But  then  he  would  have  loved  her.  She  could  not 
spend  herself  for  the  husband  whose  tone  and  touch 
had  hardened  to  her.  She  could  not  cast  away  the 
pearls  of  wifehood  :  that  were  to  commit  the  unpar- 
donable sin  of  married  story. 

But  Ostrander  came  back  presently,  manfully 
enough,  to  his  wife's  room.  He  was  startled  by 
what  she  had  said,  and  touched  by  the  gentle  dig- 
nity with  which  she  had  said  it.  Then  the  con- 
sciousness of  clean  linen  is  in  and  of  itself  a  source 
of  moral  strength  only  second  to  that  of  a  clean  con- 
science. A  well-ironed  collar,  or  a  fresh  glove,  has 
carried  many  a  man  through  the  emergency  in  which 


354  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

a  wrinkle  or  a  .rip  would  have  defeated  him.  Os- 
trander  came  in,  looking  very  clean  and  comfortable, 
shut  the  door,  and  sat  down  by  his  wife  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed.  He  leaned,  putting  one  arm  over  her 
where  there  was  room  to  support  himself,  upon  his 
hand  :  Avis  stirred  uneasily,  and  he  removed  it. 

"  You  have  given  me  no  chance,  Avis,"  he  began, 
"  to  explain  myself:  I  don't  see  but  I  must  take 
it." 

"  What  is  the  use  ?  "  asked  Avis  drearily. 

"I  don't  understand  your  disinclination  to  discuss 
the  matter,"  said  Ostrander,  flushing  slightly. 

4 'There  is  nothing  to  discuss,"  said  his  wife, 
turning  her  head  from  side  to  side  upon  the  pillow. 
"  When  a  man  has  ceased  to  love  his  wife,  that  is 
not  a  subject  of  discussion  between  them." 

' '  Upon  your  own  lips  rest  the  shadow  from  those 
words  !  "  he  cried  with  an  heroic  air.  ' '  /  did  not 
utter  them.  I  scorn  to  deny  that  I  have  ceased  to 
love  my  wife." 

"  You  adopt  a  singular  method  of  expressing 
your  affection,"  said  Avis.  She  was  terrified  at  her 
own  words  as  soon  as  they  were  spoken.  Roots  of 
bitterness  and  blight  seemed  to  be  fastening  upon 
her  soul,  like  a  fungoid  disease  upon  the  flesh. 

"  Well,  admit  then,"  said  he  with  a  peculiarly 
winning  air  of  patient  sadness,  "  that  my  love  is 
not  quite  the  same  as  it  was  ;  that  it  has  assumed, 
with  time,  a  different  form  and  different  force." 

"  Oh,  hush!  "    cried  Avis.     She  could  not  help 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  355 

it :  the  imperious  impulse  of  the  woman  overswept 
her.  When  her  husband  understated  in  her  ears 
that  which  her  own  voice  had  underscored,  she  felt 
as  if  she  had  plunged  a  knife  into  a  dissolving  ghost, 
and  drawn  it  back,  reeking  with  human  blood.  All 
was  over  now,  she  thought.  The}7  never  could  look 
at  each  other  with  tender  fictions  in  their  glance 
again.  Their  four  lips  had  spoken  the  terrible 
truth :  in  their  e}Tes  forever  would  be  the  memory 
of  it. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  continued  Ostrander  sadly,  "  that 
my  peculiar  temperament  has  brought  you  into  suf- 
fering. I  ought  to  have  foreseen  it ;  but  I  had  more 
confidence  in  myself  than  events  have  warranted." 

' '  Do  you  care  for  —  do  you  love  Barbara  ? ' '  asked 
Avis  abruptly.  Her  voice  rang  foreign  to  her  own 
ears.  The  whole  scene  moved  on  dimly  to  her,  as 
if  they  sat  on  some  solemn  historic  tribunal,  weigh- 
ing the  fate  of  two  strangers  whose  life  hung  in  their 
trembling  hands. 

"Love  her?  No!"  thundered  Ostrander,  recoil- 
ing. 

"  What  is  it  like,  I  wonder,"  asked  Avis,  "to  feel 
as  you  do  ?  I  am  not  made  so  as  to  understand  it, 
Philip." 

"You  may  thank  Heaven  you  are  not,"  murmured 
Ostrander,  exactly  as  if  she  had  inquired  of  him 
touching  the  sufferings  consequent  upon  some  physi- 
cal deformity. 

"Is  it  friendship  you  seek ?"  went  on  Avis  sim- 


356  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

ply.  "  My  husband  was  my  friend.  I  needed  no 
other." 

"That  is  your  temperament,"  said  Ostrander : 
"mine  is  different.  I  am  sorry  it  is  so.  I  don't 
know  what  more  I  can  say." 

It  is  impossible  to  convey  the  absence  of  self- 
insistence  and  presence  of  gentle  regret  by  which 
Ostrander  contrived  to  transfigure  these  feeble  words  : 
they  seemed,  as  he  uttered  them,  to  be  the  outgrowth 
of  a  delicate  and  forbearing  reticence,  in  itself  the 
index  of  essential  strength.  Avis  lay  for  a  few 
moments  with  a  pathetic  confusion  on  her  worn  face. 
Her  husband  made  her  feel  as  if  she  were  dealing 
with  an  afflicted  man. 

"It  is  harder  to  be  subject  than  the  object  of  an 
infirmity,"  he  went  on.  "Do  me  the  justice,  Avis,. 
to  remember  that  I  must  suffer  more  in  discovering 
that  my  affection  is  capable  of  change  than  you  can 
in  the  consequences  of  such  a  fact." 

"That  will  do,"  said  Avis  faintly,  after  a  silence. 
"It  is  a  waste  of  strength  for  us  to  talk.  We  do 
not  understand  each  other." 

"I  repeat,"  he  said  more  earnestly,  "that  I  am 
sorry  for  the  whole  thing.  You  shall  not  be  anno}~ed 
again.  Don't  take  the  children  to  father's  just  yet ! ' ' 
He  leaned  over  her,  smiling ;  but  her  soul  sickened 
within  her.  He  had  rather  expected  to  kiss  her  ;  but 
the  expression  of  her  mouth  deterred  him.  He  would 
as  soon  have  dared  to  kiss  the  Melian  Venus. 

How  could  he  know  that  a  great  impulse  came  upon 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  357 

her  to  throw  herself  upon  his  heart,  and  sob  her  misery 
out  ?  It  seemed  incredible  that  Philip  could  not  help 
her  to  bear  it.  They  had  been  so  dear  to  each  other 
—  for  so  long !  Then  she  thought  how  he  would 
soothe  her,  and  how  she  should  writhe  to  remember 
it.  He  did  not  love  her.  He  was  her  husband. 
Humiliation  beyond  humiliation  lay  forever  now  in 
his  caress.  She  gave  him  her  hand  gravely,  like  a 
courteous  acquaintance. 

She  thought,  "I  would  have  clung  to  you  I "  But 
she  said  only,  — 

"Well,  Philip,  we  must  make  the  best  we  can  of 
it."  After  a  silence  she  added,  — 

"We  shall  always  need  each  other's  forbearance, 
though" —  She  could  not  bring  herself  to  say, 
"though  we  have  lost  each  other's  love."  And  then 
Van  ran  in,  radiant  and  indescribable.  He  had  in- 
vited Mary  Ann  and  the  kitty  to  a  party.  He  had 
been  dressing  his  hair  —  with  the  prepared  glue. 

Barbara  that  afternoon  curled  her  hair,  with  cheeks 
hotter  than  the  seething  tongs.  She  had  made  up 
her  mind  that  it  would  be  best  for  her  to  marry  be- 
fore long.  She  thought,  perhaps,  she  had  amused 
herself  with  men  about  long  enough.  Barbara  was 
exceedingly  disconcerted  at  what  had  happened.  She 
hoped  there  would  be  no  talk :  Barbara  could  think 
of  nothing  worse  than  to  be  talked  about.  She  had 
never  forgotten  herself  before .  In  Barbara' s  "  set " 
in  Hannouth,  young  ladies  did  not  flirt  with  married 


358  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

men.  Barbara  had  never  been  the  least  in  love  with 
Philip  Ostrander.  But,  strictly  speaking,  it  could 
not  be  said  that  she  had  ever  quite  forgiven  him  for 
not  having  fallen  in  love  with  herself  before  he  mar- 
ried Avis.  Yet  she  knew  it  was  expecting  too  much 
of  the  masculine  perception  that  he  should  under- 
stand all  that. 

Probably  he  would  go  to  his  grave  supposing  that 
she  cared. 

No  more  subtly  confusing  type  of  woman  than 
Barbara  is  as  }'et  rudimentary  in  the  world.  That 
man  must  have  a  keen  and  modest  eye  who  will 
distinguish  her  vanity  from  her  tenderness,  or  her 
love  of  his  admiration  from  her  love  of  himself. 

Barbara  thought  she  should  marry  a  minister. 

One  day  not  long  after,  John  Rose  ran  over  to 
High  Street.  There  was  a  poor  fellow  who  could 
not  get  a  scholarship ;  and  Mrs.  Ostrander  had 
promised  some  flannels  to  those  Pinkham  babies ; 
and  Coy  sent  over  a  taste  of  snow-pudding  ;  and  so 
on.  But,  when  he  went  away,  he  put  one  finger 
upon  Ostrander's  arm  with  a  delicate  yet  deepening 
pressure.  Ostrander  followed  him  at  once  to  the 
street. 

"I  suppose  you  know,"  began  John  Rose,  hesi- 
tating gravely,  "  at  least  I  thought  I  had  better  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact,  that  Harmouth  is  very 
much  occupied  just  now  with  —  that  accident  in  the 
dory." 

11  The — mischief  it  is !  "  said  Ostrander,  stopping 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  359 

short.  There  was  a  silence,  in  which  the  two  young 
men  walked  up  and  down  in  front  of  the  gate.  Avis 
watched  them  from  the  windows  contentedly.  She 
always  liked  to  see  her  husband  and  John  Rose  to- 
gether. She  thought,  or  rather  she  felt,  that  John's 
must  be  one  of  the  golden  natures  of  which  it  would 
be  possible  to  say,  as  was  said  of  one  of  the  grand- 
est of  our  time  —  the  noblest  words,  that  can  be 
spoken  of  any  human  life,  —  "  There  never  lived  a 
truer  friend." 

Ostrander  put  his  hand  upon  the  other's  shoulder 
as  they  walked,  and  leaned  upon  it  heavily. 

"  Seriously  so,  Rose?  "  he  asked. 

"  Not  unkindly  so,  I  think,"  said  Rose  thought- 
fully ;  ' '  but  there  is  some  unnecessary  and  annoying 
gossip.  It  will  soon  blow  over ;  but  I  thought  — 
excuse  me,  Phil  —  it  would  be  as  well  for  you  to  un- 
derstand it  at  the  outset." 

"John,"  said  Ostrander,  after  a  longer  silence 
than  before,  "if  it  be  possible,  — you  will  help  me, 
old  fellow,  I  know,  —  I  hope  my  wife  may  never 
hear  of  this." 

She  never  did. 


360  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

"  Every  man  has  experienced  how  feelings  which  end  in  them- 
selves, and  do  not  express  themselves  in  action,  leave  the  heart  de- 
hilitated.  We  get  feeble  and  sickly  in  character  when  we  feel  keenly, 
and  cannot  do  the  thing  we  feel."  — ROBERTSON. 

IN  September  the  college  papers  announced  that 
Professor  Philip  Ostrander  had  resigned  the  as- 
sistant geological  chair  in  Harmouth  University,  on 
account  of  an  increasing  delicacy  of  the  lungs,  in 
consequence  of  which  his  physicians  had  forbidden 
all  brain  labor,  and  required  a  change  of  climate.  It 
was  understood  that  he  would  sail  for  Havre  next 
week  to  spend  the  winter  in  the  south  of  France. 
His  resignation  was  deeply  regretted  by  the  Faculty 
and  students.  The  academic  year  opened  prosper- 
ously under  the  hands  of  Professor  Brown,  his  suc- 
cessor. Professor  Cobin  was  expected  to  resign  at 
the  close  of  the  winter  term. 

Professor  Ostrander  was  so  feeble,  that  he  had  not 
been  present  at  the  Senior  Party  kindty  given  by  Mrs. 
President  Hogarth  at  the  usual  time.  He  had  been 
as  deeply  missed  in  the  drawing-room  as  he  would 
be  in  the  class-room,  both  of  which  locations  he  emi- 
nently graced. 

Professor  Brown  was  understood  to  be  the  man 
who  had  recently  detected  the  precise  difference  be- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  361 

tween  the  frontal  sinuses  in  the  white  and  grisly 
bears.     A  brilliant  career  was  predicted  for  him. 

FOOTNOTE.  —  A  contributor  adds,  that  he  is  also  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  left  foramen  of  the  third  cervical  vertebra  of 
the  first  monkey  who  harmonized  with  the  environment. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  a  Freshman  bears  the  entire  re- 
sponsibility of  this  grave  statement. 

After  the  first  strange  chill  was  out  of  the  lonely 
air,  Avis  was  shocked  to  find  her  husband's  absence 
a  relief.  He  had  become  extremely  irritable  before 
he  went  away.  The  re-action  from  his  college-work, 
and  from  his  escapade  with  Barbara,  had  added  mor- 
tification to  mortification,  under  which  he  weakened 
petulantly.  Like  all  untuned  natures,  he  grew  dis- 
cordant under  the  friction  of  care  and  trouble.  He 
became  really  so  ill,  that  Avis  felt  that  not  an  hour 
should  be  lost  in  removing  him  from  the  immediate 
pressure  of  annoyances  from  which  she  could  not 
shield  him.  It  was  she  who  passed  lightly  over  the 
embarrassments  and  economies  under  which  the  pro- 
jected journey  must  place  the  family.  It  was  she 
who  was  sure  they  could  get  along  till  the  lease  of 
the  house  was  out.  It  was  she  who  was  confident 
that  rest  would  restore  him,  and  that  a  future  would 
await  him.  It  was  she  who  remembered  the  draughts 
that  lurked  for  him,  shaded  the  sun  that  dazzled 
him,  cured  the  headaches  that  tore  him,  went  away  to 
amuse  the  children  when  they  fretted  him.  Philip 
must  have  the  cream-whip  and  the  sherry,  and  the 
canter  across  country,  and  Europe,  though  the  nurse 


362  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

were  dismissed,  and  the  seamstress  abandoned, 
and  the  rent  paid  —  Heaven  help  her  ! — out  of  that 
locked  studio  to  whose  cold  and  disused  walls  she 
should  creep  by  and  by  with  barren  brain,  and  broken 
heart,  and  stiffened  fingers. 

Avis  took  the  emergency  in  her  own  strong  hand. 
She  planned,  she  hoped,  she  commanded,  she  con- 
trived. That  intelligent  self-surrender  which  is  the 
supreme  sign  of  strength,  expressed  itself  in  her 
with  the  pictorial  graciousness  peculiar  to  her  special 
gift.  She  brought  the  whole  force  of  her  profes- 
sional training  to  bear  upon  the  shade  of  d}Te  which 
might  renew  a  baby's  cloak.  She  made  the  very 
shoes  that  Van  wore  in  those  days,  —  poor  little 
pathetic  shoes,  badly  stitched,  perhaps,  but  of  ex- 
quisite color,  and  a  temporary  defiance  to  the  family 
shoemaker.  If  only  papa  could  have  beefsteak  at 
breakfast,  the  omelette  need  not  be  in  a  nicked 
platter ;  and  a  flower  or  so  on  the  table  gave  Van  a 
swelling  consciousness  of  hilarious  domestic  dissipa- 
tion, which  obviated  the  gloom  of  absent  luxuries. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  have  you  burdened  with  such  petty 
economies,"  Philip  had  said  one  day.  But  he  spoke 
with  the  polite  reserve  which  had  become  habitual  with 
him.  He  was  always  polite  to  his  wife.  He  noticed 
her  domestic  ingenuities  with  approval.  He  said,  — 

4 '  We  never  thought  }'ou  would  turn  out  so  com- 
fortable a  housekeeper,  did  we,  Avis?'*  with  an 
absent-minded  smile.  And  then  he  asked  her  what 
she  did  with  his  passports,  and  if  she  had  packed 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  363 

the  Calasaya  bark,  and  where  was  the  lecture  on 
"  Chalk,"  which  he  thought  he  might  have  a  chance 
to  deliver  in  England.  Avis  answered  patiently. 
She  thought  Philip  walked  about  like  a  frost-bitten 
man.  A  certain  hardness  in  his  nature,  of  which  she 
could  not  be  mistaken  in  fancying  herself  the  especial 
object,  developed  itself  in  a  delicate  but  freezing  form, 
like  the  ice-scenery  upon  a  window.  It  was  with  pro- 
found inteUectual  confusion  that  she  remembered  his 
first  kiss.  Was  this  the  man  who  had  wooed  and 
won  her  with  an  idealizing  gentleness  which  made 
of  his  incarnate  love  a  thing  divine?  To  admit  it 
seemed  like  a  challenge  to  the  doctrine  of  personal 
identity.  One  day,  spurred  by  a  momentary  impulse 
to  leave  no  overture  of  wifely  forgiveness  and  yearn- 
ing unoffered,  of  whose  omission  she  might  think 
afterwards  with  that  scorching  self-rebuke  in  which 
all  shallow  pride  shrivels  to  the  bitterest  ashes,  she 
crept  up  to  him  and  began  timidly, — 

"  Philip,  this  poor  old  carmine  shawl  that  you  used 
to  like  so  much  is  pretty  well  faded  out.  Do  3'ou 
remember  the  night  when  we  first  came  home,  when 
I  had  it  on?" 

"  Yes,  I  remember,"  said  Philip  distinctly. 

"  We  were  very  happy,  Philip  —  then." 

"Yes." 

"  Sometimes  I  wonder,"  tremulously,  "  if  no- 
thing in  this  world  can  ever  make  us  feel  so  again." 

"  That,"  he  said,  regarding  her  with  cool,  distant 
eyes,  "is  entirely  out  of  the  question."  The  man 


364  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

whose  unapproachable  tenderness  had  spared  the  life 
of  a  dumb  bird  because  it  trusted  him,  could  say 
this  —  to  his  wife.  His  voice  had  a  fine,  grating 
sound.  It  made  Avis  think  of  the  salute  of  icebergs 
meeting  and  passing  in  the  dark. 

Yet  we  should  see  that,  apparently,  Philip  Os- 
trander  was  as  unconscious  of  cruelt}^  as  the  burnt- 
out  crater  is  of  the  snow  that  has  sifted  down  its 
sides.  It  was  his  temperament,  he  reasoned,  to  ex- 
press himself  as  he  felt,  and  he  certainly  did  not  feel 
to  his  wife  as  he  did  when  they  first  married.  He  saw 
no  occasion  for  dwelling  upon  an  ardor  which  mar- 
riage must  inevitably  chill.  A  vis's  good  sense  must 
perceive  this.  Why  should  they  trouble  themselves  ? 
The  daily  annoyances  and  anxieties  which  the  bond 
between  them  compelled  them  to  share  were  as  much, 
he  thought,  as  either  of  them  could  bear  just  now, 
without  adding  any  finer  affectional  subtleties  to  their 
burden.  He  wished  with  all  his  heart,  he  said,  that 
it  had  been  the  necessary  outgrowth  of  his  nature  to 
love  with  the  poetic  constancy  natural  to  his  wife. 
Events  had  proved  that  it  was  not.  What,  then, 
could  he  do?  Ostrander  pitied  himself.  He  sin- 
cerely believed  that  he  bore  the  heavier  end  of  their 
mutual  sorrow. 

And  now  he  was  gone. 

He  had  not,  indeed,  parted  with  his  wife  without 
emotion  ;  but  it  was  a  perfectly  silent  one,  like  that 
of  a  man  struggling  with  feelings  ill  defined  to  him- 
self. He  had  hung  over  his  bo}^,  and  clung  to  him, 
choking.  He  was  very  fond  of  Van. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  365 

His  departure  left  Avis  free  for  a  space  to  wrestle 
as  she  might  with  the  inevitable  re-action  of  the  last 
few  months.  In  the  calm  of  her  first  solitary  hours 
she  was  chastened  to  perceive  how  her  married  story 
had  deepened  and  broadened,  nay,  it  seemed,  created 
in  her,  certain  quivering  human  sympathies.  Her 
great  love  —  so  hardly  won,  so  lightly  cherished  — 
withdrew  upon  itself  in  a  silence  through  which  all 
the  saddened  lovers  of  the  world  seemed  to  glide  with 
outstretched  hand,  and  minister  to  her,  —  a  mighty 
company.  Especially  her  heart  leaned  out  to  all 
denied  and  deserted  women,  to  all  deceived  and 
trustful  creatures.  A  strange  kinship,  too  solemn 
for  any  superficial  caste  of  the  nature  to  blight, 
seemed  to  bind  her  to  them  all.  Betrayed  girls, 
abandoned  wives,  aged  and  neglected  mothers,  lived 
in  her  fancy  with  a  new,  exacting  claim.  To  the 
meanest  thing  that  trod  the  earth,  small  in  all  else, 
but  large  enough  to  love  and  suffer,  her  strong  heart 
stooped,  and  said,  "  Thou  —  thou,  too,  art  my  sis- 
ter." 

Avis  had  been  bred  to  the  reticence  not  uncharac- 
teristic of  the  New-England  religion  among  its  more 
cultivated,  or  at  least,  among  its  more  studious  pos- 
sessors. She  was  one  of  those  sincere  and  silent 
Christians  with  whom  we  must  look  more  to  the  life 
than  to  the  lip  for  the  evidence  of  the  faith  that  is 
in  them.  The  professor's  had  been  a- home  in  which 
the  religious  character  of  his  child  was  taken  for 
granted,  like  her  sense  of  delicacy.  She  was  expect- 


366  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

ed  to  be  a  Christian  woman  precisely  as  she  was 
expected  to  be  a  cultivated  lady:  in  a  matter  of 
course,  abundant  speech  was  a  superfluous  weakness. 
She  had  escaped  the  graver  dangers  of  this  training, 
but  not  its  life-long  influences.  It  was  inevitable 
that  the  tragedy  of  her  married  life  should  result  in 
a  temporary  syncope  of  faith,  which  it  was  equally 
inevitable  that  she  should  support  in  perfect  solitude. 
But  to  dwell  upon  this  phase  of  her  experience  would 
seem  to  copy  the  rude  fault  of  those  biographers 
that  break  faith  with  the  personal  confidence  of  the 
dead  who  can  no  longer  protest. 

With  a  terror  for  which  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  find  speech  or  language,  Avis  watched  departing 
love  shake  the  slow  dust  of  his  feet  against  her 
young  life.  With  a  dread  which  shook  to  the  roots 
of  belief,  she  perceived  that  her  own  slighted  ten- 
derness had  now  begun  to  chill.  That  Philip  should 
cease  to  love  her  —  this  could  be  borne.  There  was 
a  worse  thing  than  that.  All  was  hers  while  she  yet 
loved  him.  She  wrestled  with  her  retreating  affec- 
tion as  Jacob  of  old  wrestled  with  the  angel  till 
break  of  day.  She  struggled  with  that  which  was 
greater  and  graver  than  the  sweet  ghost  of  a  ruined 
home.  She  fought  for  her  faith  in  all  that  makes 
life  a  privilege,  or  death  a  joy. 

No  argument  for  the  immortality  of  the  human 
soul  seemed  to  her  so  triumphant  as  the  faith  and 
constancy  of  one  single  human  love. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  367 

u  Mamma,  has  papa  gone  to  Jerusalem?  " 

"  No,  my  son.  Mamma  has  told  you  a  great 
many  tunes  where  papa  has  gone." 

"Jesus  went  to  Jerusalem!"  said  Van  with  a 
reproving  smile,  quite  gentle,  and  a  little  sad,  as  if 
his  father  had  been  caught  in  the  omission  of  some 
vital  religious  duty.  "But  after  I  got  frough  cry- 
ing, I  fought  I'd  like  to  have  him  go.  I'd  rather 
kiss  you  myself,  mamma.  I  don't  like  another  man 
to  do  it.  I'll  have  a  wife  of  my  own,  when  I  get  big 
enough  he  needn't  fink  !  " 

"There,  Van;  that's  enough  for  now.  Don't 
you  see  I  am  very  busy  painting  ?  I  can't  kiss  little 
boys  all  day.  Run  away  now." 

Van  disappeared,  not  without  something  of  the 
reluctance  of  a  jealous  lover  drawing  his  first  breath 
of  bliss  in  the  absence  of  his  rival.  Van's  love  for 
his  mother  was  one  of  those  select  and  serious  pas- 
sions which  occasionally  make  the  tie  between  son 
and  mother  an  influence  of  complex  power.  She 
must  be  a  woman  of  a  rare  maternal  nature  who  will 
supersede  in  the  heart  of  a  man  the  mother  who  is 
capable  of  inspiring  in  the  boy  a  love  of  this  control- 
ling and  sensitive  kind. 

Scarcely  had  the  palette-knife  struck  the  cobalt  to 
the  Naples  yellow,  when  the  studio-door  shivered, 
stirred,  and  started  with  a  prolonged  and  inspiring 
creak.  Van  admitted  his  little  nose  on  probation 
into  the  crack,  and  heaved  a  heart-breaking  sigh. 

"  Mamma,"  very  sweetly,  "  now  Philip  is  gone, 
I  suppose  I  may  call  you  Avis,  mayn't  I?  " 


368  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Shut  the  door,  Van/' 

His  pretty  mamma  had  an  unhappy  habit  of  ex- 
pecting to  be  obeyed,  which  was  a  source  of  serious 
disorder  to  Van's  small  system  of  philosophy.  He 
shut  the  door  in — nose  and  all — with  a  filial  haste 
and  emphasis,  the  immediate  consequences  of  which 
fell  heavily  upon  both  parties  in  this  little  domestic 
tragedy.  When  the  outcry  is  over,  and  the  sobbing 
has  ceased,  and  the  tears  are  kissed  away,  and  the 
solid  little  sinner  lies  soothed  upon  the  cramped  and 
forgiving  arm,  where  is  the  strength  and  glory  of  the 
vision  ?  Where  are  the  leaping  fingers  that  quivered 
to  do  its  bidding  in  the  fresh  life  of  the  winter  morn- 
ing hour  ? 

"  Run  away,  again,  Van:  mother  must  go  to 
work  now." 

"  Mamma,'*  faintly,  "  I've  sat  down  on  —  some- 
fing — soft.  I'm  all  blue  and  colors,  mamma,  on  my 
sack  behind.  I  didn't  know  it  was  your  palette, 
mamma.  I  didn't  mean  to.  Oh !  I'd  rather  not. 
I'd  like  a  shair !  " 

"  Mamma,"  presently  from  behind  the  locked 
door,  "  I  want  a  piece  o'  punky-pie." 

"  No  more  pumpkin-pie,  to-day,  Van;  and  you 
mustn't  talk  to  mamma  through  the  door  any 
more." 

u  Oh! —  well,  mamma,  a  piece  o'  punky-pie  will 
do.  I've  had  the  sherries.  I've  had  twenty-free  or 
nineteen  canned  sherries.  Me  and  the  baby  eat 
'em.  I  eat  the  sherries,  and  she  eated  the  stones, 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  369 

mamma.  I  put  'em  down  her  froat.  She  needn't 
have  cried,  I  don't  fink.  So  I  want  a  piece  o' 
punky-pie." 

Silence  succeeds. 

"  Mamma,  can't  you  kiss  little  boys  all  day?  Not 
very  dee  little  boys,  mamma?" 

"  By  and  by,  Van.  Run  to  Julia  now.  Run  and 
play  with  your  little  sister." 

But  Master  Van  stoutly  maintained  that  he  did  not 
wish  the  society  of  his  little  sister.  He  thought  his 
little  sister  had  bumped  her  head.  He  should  axpect 
mamma  would  want  to  unlock  the  door,  and  find  out. 
If  he  had  the  mucilage-bottle,  and  papa's  razor,  and 
the  pretty  purple  ink  (and  the  kiss),  he  would  go 
and  find  out,  and  never  come  up  stairs  any  more. 

"  Mamma,"  by  and  by,  "  do  you  love  my  little 
sister  best  of  me,  or  me  best  of  my  little  sister?  I 
should  fink  you'd  rather  let  me  in  and  tell  me  'bout 
that. 

"O  mamma !  "  once  more  persuasively,  "  I  want 
to  say  my  prayers." 

"  To-night,  Van,  at  bed-tune." 

"  No,  I  want  to  say  'em  quick  vis  minute.  If 
you'll  let  me  in  to  say  my  prayers,  I'll  go  straight 
down  and  see  if  Julia's  got  the  cookies  done." 

Love  in  the  guise  of  religion,  as  ever  since  the 
world  was  young,  carried  the  yielding  day  before 
him.  With  despair  in  her  heart  and  the  palette 
fresh  from  its  service  as  a  cricket  in  her  hand,  Avis 
admits  the  little  devotee.  Plump  upon  his  knees 


370  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

upon  the  drying-oil  —  in  the  unutterable  background 
of  that  sack  —  drops  Van,  and  thus  waylays  the 
throne  of  grace,  — 

' '  O  Lord !  please  to  not  let  boys  tell  lies  and  say 
he's  got  a  jack-knife  and  a  pistol  in  his  pocket 
when  he  hasn't  either  one  which  a  boy  did  to  Jack 
Rose  and  me  this  morning  O  Lord  Amen.  .  .  . 
Mamma,  I  fink  it  was  one  of  the  Plimpton  boys. 
Now  will  you  kiss  me,  mamma?  " 

And  so,  and  so,  and  so  —  what  art  can  tell  us 
how  ?  O  golden  winter  morning !  your  coy  heart  is 
repulsed  forever ;  and  when  from  the  depths  of  the 
house,  sweeps,  like  a  scythe  upon  the  artist's  nerves, 
that  sound  which  all  the  woman  in  her  shrinks  to 
hear,  —  the  cry  of  a  hurt  baby,  —  Avis  with  a  sigh 
unlocks  the  studio-door.  There  is  the  problem  of 
ages  in  that  speechless  sigh.  Van,  all  paint  and 
patience,  like  a  spaniel  lies  curled  upon  the  floor, 
with  his  lips  against  the  studio-door.  The  stout 
little  lover,  faithful  in  exile,  has  lain  and  kissed  the 
threshold  till  he  has  kissed  himself  asleep. 

The  rare  tears  filled  Avis's  eyes  as  she  lifted  him ; 
and  then  Julia  brought  the  baby,  and  the  bump,  and 
the  brown  paper.  And  there  she  was  sitting,  pin- 
ioned, with  both  children,  patient  and  worn,  with  the 
bright  colors  of  her  paints  around  her,  and  the  pic- 
tures, with  their  mute  faces  to  the  wall,  about  the 
room  (there  was  a  hand-organ,  too,  playing  a  dis- 
mal little  tune  somewhere  down  the  street) ,  when  an 
impatient  knock  preceded  a  nervous  push  to  the 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  371 

unlatched  door,  and,  with  the  familiarity  of  art  and 
age,  her  old  master  presented  himself  upon  the 
scene. 

Frederick  Maynard  stood  still.  He  did  not  im- 
mediately speak.  He  looked  from  child  to  child, 
from  both  to  her,  from  her  to  the  barren  easel.  The 
dismal  hand-organ  below  set  up  a  discordant  wail, 
the  more  pathetic  for  its  discord,  like  all  inharmoni- 
ous things.  The  baby  had  pulled  down  Avis's  pink 
neck-ribbon  and  her  bright  hair.  The  tears  lay  un- 
dried  upon  her  cheek,  whose  color  slowly  stirred,  and 
scorched  her  lifted,  languid  face. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  trying  to  smile,  "how 
it  is.'* 

"I  am  not  here  to  see  any  thing,"  answered 
the  drawing-master  shortly.  "  What  have  you  done 
this  week  ?  ' ' 

"Nothing." 

« «  Last  week  ?    The  week  before  ?  ' ' 

1 ;  Nothing  at  all.  Only  the  sketch  for  the  crayon 
that  you  see.  And  I  have  begun  to  give  drawing- 
lessons  to  Chatty  Hogarth.  Mr.  Maynard,  once  a 
visitor  came  into  Andrea  del  Sarto's  studio.  It  was 
after  his  marriage.  He  was  dabbling  away  at  some 
little  thing.  He  looked  up  and  said,  '  Once  I  worked 
for  eternity :  now  I  work  for  my  kitchen.'  J 

"Confound  the  kitchen- work !"  cried  Maynard 
savagely.  "  Kitchen- work,  indeed!  Crayon  por- 
traits, I  should  think !  Drawing-lessons  if  you  dare  ! 
You  —  you !  Why,  I  am  sixty  years  old.  I  have 


372  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

never  got  a  picture  into  the  exhibition  but  once. 
There  was  a  quarrel  among  the  directors,  and  one 
fellow  put  my  landscape  in  to  spite  another  —  but 
I've  never  thought  the  less  of  the  landscape.  And 
here  are  you  with  your  sphinxes  and  your  sphinxes 
—  why,  New  York  has  gone  wild  over  you  in  one 
week's  time  !  Every  studio  in  the  city  pricking  up 
its  ears,  and  '  The  Easel '  and  '  The  Blender  '  in  a 
duel  over  the  picture  to  start  with.  May  Heaven 
bless  them  for  it !  Drawing-lessons,  indeed  !  " 

"Pray  tell  me,"  said  Avis,  growing  very  pale, 
and  putting  the  children  down,  lest  her  faint  arms 
should  drop  them,  —  ' '  pray  explain  exactly  what 
you  mean.  I  do  not  understand.  1  have  never 
heard  from  the  picture  since  you  sent  it  to  New 
York.  Has  anybody  noticed  —  will  anybody  buy 
my  sphinx?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  drawing-master  with  a  short  laugh. 
"I  don't  think  anybody  will  buy  the  picture — just 
yet.  Not  immediately,  that  is.  The  trouble  is,  you 
see  "  — 

' '  I  expected  trouble, ' '  sighed  Avis  patiently.  ' '  I 
am  used  to  that.  Don't  mind  telling  me.  /  don't 
mind." 

"  Why,  the  only  trouble  is,"  said  Frederick  Ma}T- 
nard,  "that  the  picture  was  caught  up  the  second 
day  out." 

"  Caught  up  ?  "  asked  Avis  faintly. 

"  Engaged  —  bought  —  sold  —  paid  for.  The 
sphinx  was  sold  before  Goupil  had  held  it  forty-eight 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  373 

hours.  Mind  you  don't  let  Goupil  photograph  it. 
You  can't  afford  to  photograph  a  fledgling.  You 
have  a  future.  'The  Easel'  says  it  is  a  work  of 
pure  imagination.  'The  Blender'  says  it  shows 
signs  of  haste." 

'"The  Blender'  is  right,"  said  Avis  with  return- 
ing breath  and  color.  "That  child  in  the  foreground 
—  the  Arab  child  looking  at  the  sphinx  with  his 
finger  on  his  lips,  swearing  her  to  silence  —  do  you 
remember  ?  I  put  in  that  child  in  one  hour.  It  was 
the  day'.'  — 

She  checked  herself.  Her  husband  himself  should 
never  know  the  story  of  that  day  —  he  would  not 
understand.  It  would  not  have  been  to  him  as  it 
was  to  her,  coming  down  that  morning,  not  a  month 
after  he  had  sailed,  to  find  the  dun  for  those  college 
debts.  Avis  had  the  blind  horror  and  shame  of  most 
delicate  women  in  the  presence  of  a  debt.  Her  sting- 
ing impulse  had  been  to  discharge  this  without  telling 
Philip  or  her  father.  Upon  the  spot  she  drew  up  an 
order  for  the  sale  of  some  bonds  of  her  own,  upon 
whose  proceeds  the  family  were  in  part  dependent  for 
the  coming  year.  Fortunately  she  had  not  to  deal 
with  stock  or  real  estate,  which  the  wife  cannot  sell 
without  the  husband's  consent.  Avis  did  not  know 
this.  She  knew  nothing,  except  that  she  was  grieved 
and  shamed,  and  vaguely  in  need  of  money.  She 
flew  to  the  studio,  struck  the  great  sphinx  dumb  with 
the  uplifted  finger  of  a  child,  and  sent  it  desperately 
from  her  before  the  cool  of  her  frenzy  fell. 


374  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

"  You  are  to  make  no  more  portraits,  you  under- 
stand/' said  Frederick  Maynard,  stumbling  over 
Van,  and  narrowly  escaping  sitting  on  the  baby  as  he 
went  out.  ''You'll  never  be  a  portrait-painter.  You 
must  create:  you  cannot  copy.  That  is  what  we 
lack  in  this  country.  We  have  no  imagination.  The 
sphinx  is  a  creation.  I  told  Goupil  so  when  I  took 
it  on.  He  bowed  politely.  And  now  he  comes  ask- 
ing for  a  photograph  !  You  —  you  !  —  life  is  before 
you  now.  And  I  am  sixty-three  years  old." 

But  Avis  put  her  hand  in  his  with  a  patient,  un- 
responsive smile.  She  looked  very  gentle  in  her 
falling  hair.  The  children  clung  to  her.  The  light 
lay  gravely  on  the  studio-floor.  She  could  hear  the 
faint  pulse  of  the  sea,  whose  mighty  heart  beat  be- 
tween her  and  her  husband,  throbbing  upon  the  frozen 
shore.  The  hand-organ  in  the  street  wailed  on. 

' '  Life  is  behind  me  too, ' '  she  said  gently.  ' '  It  was 
before  my  marriage  that  I  painted  the  sphinx.  Don't 
be  too  much  disappointed  in  me,  if  there  are  never 
any  more  pictures.  Oh,  I  shall  try !  but  I  do  not 
hope  —  do  not  think.  We  all  have  our  lives  to  bear. 
If  I,  too,  were  sixty-three,  perhaps  —  there,  hush, 
my  little  girl !  —  perhaps  —  I  should  not  —  mind  so 
much  " — 

"It  seems  to  me,"  interrupted  the  drawing-mas- 
ter, winking  resolutely,  "  that  it  can't  be  quite  right 
for  those  children  to  look  just  as  they  do.  Isn't 
there  something  a  little  peculiar  in  their  expression  ? 

Van  was  ingeniously  trying  to  cut  his  throat  with 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  375 

the  palette-knife,  and  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  accuse  the  baby  of  not  trying  to  swallow  the  tube 
of  Prussian  blue. 

The  year  ran  fleetly.  Van  was  ailing  a  great  deal 
that  spring ;  and  in  the  summer  her  father  was  ill. 
Thus,  in  the  old,  sad,  subtle  ways,  Avis  was  exiled 
from  the  studio.  She  could  not  abandon  herself  to 
it  without  a  feminine  sense  of  guilt,  under  which 
women  less  tender  may  thrive  callously,  but  at 
whose  first  touch  she  quivered  with  pain.  She 
was  stunned  to  find  how  her  aspiration  had  ema- 
ciated during  her  married  life.  Household  care 
had  fed  upon  it  like  a  disease.  Sometimes  she 
thought  it  an  accession  to  her  misery,  that  still, 
straight  forever  through  the  famine  of  her  lot,  its 
heart  beat  on,  like  that  of  the  nervous  ph}*sique, 
which  is  first  to  yield,  but  last  to  die.  Then  she 
wished,  with  all  the  wild,  hot  protest  of  her  nature, 
that  the  spirit  of  this  gift  with  which  God  had 
created  her  —  in  a  mood  of  awful  infinite  irony,  it 
seemed  —  would  return  to  Him  who  gave  it,  that  the 
dust  of  her  days  might  descend  to  the  dust  in  peace. 
She  wished  she  were  like  other  women,  —  content  to 
stitch  and  sing,  to  sweep  and  smile.  She  bowed 
her  face  on  the  soft  hair  of  her  children ;  but  she 
could  not  forget  that  they  had  been  bought  with  a 
great  price.  She  thought  of  the  husband  whose 
love  she  had  mislaid,  and  counted  the  cost  of  her 
marriage  in  the  blood  of  her  soul. 


376  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


"  Mamma,  I'm  most  damp  and  a  little  wet.'* 
Van,  one  sharp  afternoon  in  September,  said  this 
hilariously.  He  and  Wait  had  been  to  swim.  They'd 
been  to  swim  in  the  hogshead.  Julia  wouldn't  put 
Wait  in  ;  but  lie  got  in.  He  got  in  like  funder,  while 
she  went  to  tell  of  him.  Then  she  came  back  and 
pulled  hun  out.  But  there  weren't  any  fishes  in  the 
hogshead,  and  he'd  rather  have^his  feet  shanged 
now.  What  was  the  matter,  mamma? 

u  O  Lord!  "  said  Van,  kneeling,  swaddled  in  his 
mother's  rose-colored  shoulder-robe  at  his  prayers 
that  night,  —  "  O  Lord  !  I  know  you've  got  a  great 
many  little  boys  to  fink  of;  but  I  hope  you'll  re- 
member I've  got  a  sore  froat." 

And  now  what  was  the  matter,  again,  mamma? 
Somefing  was  always  the  matter,  Van  thought  to- 
day. He  wished  there  had  never  any  such  day  been 
born. 

"  Lo !  "  echoed  the  heart  of  the  mother,  "  let  that 
day  be  darkness ;  neither  let  the  light  shine  upon  it. 
As  for  that  night,  let  darkness  seize  upon  it.  Lo  ! 
let  that  night  be  solitary;  let  no  joyful  voice  come 
therein." 

With  the  frosty  dawn  the  child  lay  very  ill.  Be- 
fore another  night  an  acute  form  of  pneumonia  had 
developed  itself.  Sensitive  from  birth,  the  boy's 
lungs  succumbed  with  only  a  frail  struggle.  For  fif- 
teen days  and  nights  his  mother  hung  over  him  in 
her  strong,  dumb  way.  Then,  perhaps,  she  first 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  377 

understood  the  solemn  depth  of  the  tie,  which, 
through  all  distance  and  all  difference,  all  trial  and 
ah1  time,  binds  any  two  human  creatures  who  have 
bestowed  life  upon  a  third.  In  this  awful  language 
of  bereavement  which  God  was  setting  her  ignorant 
youth  to  learn,  her  own  loss  seemed  to  her  but  the 
alphabet  of  agony.  Her  heart  yearned  with  un- 
spoken and  unspeakable  throes  over  the  father  of 
her  child.  That  this  must  be ;  that  the  lips  of  his 
first-born  should  grow  cold  without  his  good-by 
kiss  ;  that  Philip,  somewhere  wide  across  the  world, 
should  that  day  be  strolling  and  laughing  in  the  sun, 
not  knowing, — this  seemed  to  her  the  very  sense 
and  soul  of  her  sorrow.  She  saw  him  go  chatting 
with  a  group  of  sight-seekers  down  a  bright  street, 
idling  in  a  chapel  at  the  mass,  buying  a  ticket  for 
the  opera,  twirling  a  lady's  fan  beneath  a  chandelier, 
praising  the  claret  at  the  hotels,  drumming  with 
his  finger  to  the  music  in  the  beer-garden,  stopping 
at  the  toy-shop  windows  to  decide  what  he  would 
get  for  Van,  writing  notes,  perhaps,  to  the  little 
fellow  (he  wrote  to  Van  a  good  deal)  at  that  mo- 
ment ;  while  the  boy  struggled  on  her  nerveless  arm, 
to  turn  and  say,  — 

u  Mamma,  will  papa  come  walking  in?  " 

"  Some  day,  Van,  some  time." 

"  Will  he  come  in  at  the  front-door,  mamma,  to 
kiss  his  dee  little  boy?  " 

"  O  my  darling  !  Some  time  —  somewhere  —  yes. ' ' 

"I  fought  I  heard  somebody  at  the  front-door, 
mamma.'* 


378  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  It  is  the  wind  we  hear,  Van." 

"  Can't  papa  get  home  on  the  wind?  Can't  papa 
—  walk  —  on  "the  wings  —  of  the  wind?  God  did. 
I  fought  papa  could,  mamma." 

"  Mamma,  do  you  love  my  little  sister  best  of  me? 
or  me  —  best "  — 

Best,  oh,  best,  that  moment,  Van,  of  all  the  empty 
world ! 


THE  STORY  OP  AVIS.  379 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

"  There  above  the  little  grave, 
Oh!  there  above  the  little  grave, 
We  kissed  again  with  tears." 

THE  wind  was  high  about  the  house.  Aunt 
Chloe  and  the  professor  had  left  her  at  last 
alone  to  sit  and  listen  to  it.  The  baby  slept.  The 
women  had  gone  sobbing  away.  The  windows 
stood  wide  to  the  bitter  dark  in  that  room  up  stairs. 
The  child's  bed  was  straight  and  still.  It  was  a 
wild  night  for  the  little  fellow  to  be  lying  out  there — • 
his  first  night. 

Avis  was  almost  sorry  that  night  that  they  had 
laid  him  so  near  the  sea  ;  for  .the  sea  was  high  too, 
like  the  wind,  and  thundered  heavily,  even  here, 
sharp  through  the  sheltered  house.  He  had  alwaj^s 
been  a  wakeful  baby,  quick  to  start  and  shiver  in  his 
naps.  She  could  not  rid  herself  of  the  feeling  that 
the  noise  would  disturb  him.  The  imperious  mother's 
habit  of  three  years  and  a  half  of  nervous  care  was 
strong  upon  her.  She  could  have  dashed  out  and 
hushed  the  voice  of  the  almighty  deep,  lest  it  should 
wake  the  child. 

Pursued  with  this  and  a  horde  of  the  irrational 
impulses  of  solitary  grief,  Avis  sought  refuge  in  her 
first  attempt  to  write  to  the  boy's  father.  The  arm 


380  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

upon  which  Van.  had  lain,  with  imperfect  intervals  of 
relief,  for  fifteen  days  and  nights  (it  had  been  only 
in  one  position  that  the  child  could  breathe)  refused 
to  hold  the  pen.  She  wrote  with  her  left  hand,  a 
faint  and  feeble  cipher.  She  told  him  what  there 
was  to  tell,  sparing  when  she  could,  striking  as  she 
must.  She  begged  him  not  to  let  this  make  any 
alteration  in  the  plans  which  his  state  of  health 
should  suggest  as  wisest  and  best  for  them  all,  — 
they  who  were  left,  —  they  three.  She  hoped  he 
would  not  allow  any  impetuous  image  of  loneliness 
at  home  to  hasten  his  return  before  the  time  which 
he  had  selected  as  desirable  in  itself,  and  urged 
upon  him  that  a  part  or  the  whole  of  his  second 
winter  should  be  spent  in  those  kinder  climates 
which  would  perfect  the  growth  of  his  now  really 
grafted  strength.  Of  herself  and  her  own  loss  or 
lot,  she  wrote  but  little.  Of  the  solitude  in  which 
she  bore  the  burden  laid  on  two,  she  did  not  speak. 
Of  her  unshared  fears,  her  unkissed  tears,  she  could 
not  tell.  She  was  an  unloved  wife.  She  could  not 
woo  her  husband. 

As  she  wrote,  the  wind  went  busying  itself  im- 
petuously as  a  lawless  feeling,  with  the  calm  of  the 
house.  It  beat  upon  the  ear  with  a  slow,  increasing 
throb,  like  the  purpose  of  an  advancing  tide.  At 
short  intervals  the  roar  uprose,  as  the  u  third  wave" 
rises  on  the  coast,  and  splashed  upon  the  walls  and 
roof.  About  the  doors  and  windows  unpleasant 
sounds  set  in  steadily :  Avis  tried  to  think  that  they 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  381 

were  like  the  sobbing  of  the  shingle  on  the  shore. 
She  could  not,  would  not,  must  not,  think  —  wild 
night,  be  so  merciful  as  that! — that  she  may  not 
think  what  else  the  wind  is  like. 

She  had  finished  and  sealed  her  letter.  She  had 
sealed  the  letter,  and  laid  it  down,  and  was  turning 
to  step  and  see  if  her  little  daughter  on  the  sofa  by 
her  side  slept  warm,  when,  in  the  swelling  of  the 
storm,  the  front-door  blew  violent!}7  open. 

She  sprang  to  shut  it,  latching  the  door  of  the 
room  behind  her.  As  she  stepped  into  the  hall,  the 
light  went  out.  Rain  blew  in  upon  her  face.  She 
groped  her  way  to  the  door,  pushing  it  feebly  —  she 
was  so  worn — against  the  resistance  of  the  wind. 
The  solid  oaken  panel  baffled  her  as  if  human  hands 
had  been  behind  it.  If  a  human  voice  had  called 
her,  — 

"Avis?" 

Swift  as  the  superstitions  that  we  would  not,  if 
we  could,  disown,  flashed  the  memory  of  the  little 
lover,  calm  out  there  in  the  discord  of  the  elements, 
stealing  up  with  brimming  face  to  say,  — 

"  Mamma,  now  papa  is  gone,  I  suppose  I  may 
call  you  Avis?  " 

Avis  could  not  have  denied  a  genuine  shock, 
when,  stretching  out  her  hands,  inch  by  inch  along 
the  wall  and  still  defiant  door,  they  fell  in  the  dead 
dark  upon  an  arm  of  flesh  and  blood. 

"  Avis,  what  is  the  matter?  Where  is  the  light? 
Do  let  me  in,  and  shut  this  superhuman  door! 


382  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

There!  Have  I  frightened  you?  I  thought  you 
would  know  when  you  heard  me  speak.  Do  let  us 
get  out  of  this  hideous  dark !  " 

"  Philip!  O  Philip!  yes,  let  us  get  out  of  the 
dark!" 

Her  own  words  appealed  with  an  entreating  sig- 
nificance to  her  own  ears  at  that  moment  as  they 
went  groping  together  to  the  light.  He  had  caught 
her  in  his  nervous  arms ;  that,  she  said  to  herself, 
was  a  matter  of  course.  He  first  found  the  latch, 
an.d  staggered  in.  The  room  was  warm,  and  seemed 
to  palpitate  with  light.  The  baby  on  the  sofa  slept 
peacefully.  The  books  —  it  was  his  study  —  turned 
their  familiar  shoulders  to  him,  and  their  open  faces 
looked  from  the  table  where  his  wife's  sealed  letter 
lay. 

"  Writing  to  me,  were  you,  Avis?  "  He  started 
on  the  purposeless  instinct  that  leads  one  to  open 
the  unsealed  letter  that  he  will  not  read,  as  nature 
leads  a  dog  to  hide  the  bone  that  he  does  not  want. 
Avis,  in  passing  the  table,  hit  the  envelope  with  her 
drapery  sleeve,  and  it  fell  into  the  waste-basket. 

"  Never  mind!"  he  said  uneasily.  "  What  do 
we  want  of  letters  now?  " 

Then  in  the  full  light  she  saw  how  rain-beaten  and 
haggard  he  was. 

"  Let  me  help  you  with  your  coat,  Philip,"  gen- 
tly. "  And  wait —  Oh,  how  wet  you  are  !  Your 
slippers  are  just  where  you  left  them.  I  have  let 
nobody  touch  them  all  this  while.  See !  And  the 


THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS.  383 

fire  is  warm."  Like  a  child  she  led  him;  like  a 
child  he  submitted.  She  would  not  question  him  or 
chatter  now.  It  was  plain  that  something  had  be- 
fallen. But  trouble  could  wait.  Care  was  too  old 
a  friend  not  to  be  put  by.  He  had  come.  Her  hus- 
band had  come  back  to  her. 

He  flung  himself  down  in  his  old  chair  in  his 
old  way.  His  breath  came  short.  He  began  at 
once,  — 

"  I  was  horribly  sick  in  London.  I've  had  two 
attacks  of  hemorrhage.  There  was  no  time  to  let 
you  know.  I  got  to  Liverpool,  and  took  the  first 
steamer.  I  was  afraid  I  shouldn't  get  home." 

"  But  you  got  home,  Philip  !  "  her  voice  snapped 
with  a  wiry  cry.  "  You  are  here,  you  are  here !  " 

"Thank  God,  yes!  " 

He  laid  his  head  back,  and  closed  his  eyes  wearily. 
When  Avis  stirred,  he  put  his  hand  to  detain  her. 
The  color  came  into  her  hollow  face. 

"  Must  you  go?  "  he  asked  softly. 

"  Only  to  see  about  supper  for  you,  Philip.  You 
are  faint,  you  see  ;  that  is  all,"  decidedly,  —  "  only 
faint.  A  good  hot  supper  and  a  long  night's  rest 
will  set  you  right."  She  brought  the  words  out  so 
pathetically,  "  a  long  night's  rest,"  — she  who  had 
not  rested  now  for  so  many  nights, — that  his  atten- 
tion was  at  once  attracted  to  her  appearance.  He 
sat  up,  rousing  with  the  nervous  rapidity  natural  to 
him. 

"Avis,  how  you  look!  Have  you  looked  like 
that  ever  since  I  have  been  gone?  " 


384  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  We  have  had  sickness  in  the  house,"  she  said 
quietly. 

4 '  Sickness  ?    Where  is  Van  ? ' ' 

"  Van  is  asleep,  Philip,"  after  a  well-nigh  imper- 
ceptible pause. 

' '  And  the  baby  ?  Is  that  the  little  lady,  that  bun- 
dle on  the  sofa?  Can  you  bring  her  to  me,  Avis? 
I  am  stronger  now,  —  stronger  already.  I  want  to 
kiss  one  of  the  children.  I  meant  it  should  have 
been  Van  first.  I  thought  about  it  in  the  cars. 
But  never  mind.  I  want  to  see  the  lassie.  Let  me 
see:  we  named  her  after  mother,  didn't  we?  Does 
she  look  like  any  of  us,  Avis?  Does  she  look  like 
you?  You  didn't  say  when  }^ou  wrote.  You 
didn't  say  much  about  yourself.  But  I  was  glad  to 
hear  so  much  about  the  children.  It  did  me  good. 
Now  let  me  see  her  —  let  me  see  the  baby." 

Avis  brought  the  child,  so  gently  that  she  did  not 
wake.  She  drew  a  chair  up,  for  she  could  not  stand, 
and  sat  down  beside  her  husband  with  the  baby  on 
her  knee.  As  she  did  so,  his  unstrung  voice  went 
strolling  on,  — 

u  How  the  wind  does  flog  this  house  !  I'm  glad 
to  be  at  home  ;  glad  we're  all  safe  under  shelter  to- 
gether. It  sounds  as  if  there  were  a  child  shut  out 
there,  crying  to  be  let  in.  But  our  little  folks  are 
warm.  Your  hands  tremble,  Avis.  Are  you  quite 
well?" 

"Quite  well;  only  tired,  Philip.  Shall  I  see 
about  the  supper  now  ?  " 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  385 

"  No,  not  now.  I  don't  want  supper.  How  the 
little  thing  has  grown !  Are  you  as  fond  of  her, 
Avis,  as  you  were  of  the  boy?  You  used  to  say  you 
were  afraid  you  should  love  the  girl  the  better.  Has 
Van  grown  so  I  sha' n't  know  him?  Little  rascal ! 
I've  kept  the  tin-tj^pe  you  sent  —  see  —  in  my  wallet. 
I've  carried  it  all  about.  I  was  sorry  you  couldn't 
afford  a  photograph.  I  showed  it  to  some  people  in 
Paris  —  some  ladies.  They  called  him  a  beautiful 
boy.  No,  please,  Avis,  don't  go.  Indeed,  I  can- 
not eat.  What  has  become  of  that  little  teapot  we 
used  to  make  tea  in,  right  here  over  the  fire,  so  long 
ago?  The  first  year,  don't  you  remember"  (half 
fretfully,  for  Avis  did  not  answer) ,  "  when  I  used  to 
come  in  tired  from  Faculty  meetings  —  after  every- 
body else  was  in  bed?  You  used  to  make  it  —  kneel- 
ing b}r  the  fire  —  on  that  cricket.  I  think  it  was  a 
Japanese  teapot.  Is  it  broken  ?  Can't  we  have  that  ? ' ' 

"  If  you  want  it,  Philip,  surely.  I  can  find  the 
teapot.  Can  you  hold  the  baby  ?  or  shall  I  take  her 
back?" 

"  No,  I'd  rather  hold  her.  Don't  be  gone  long, 
will  3^ou?  You  can't  think  how  it  is  to  get  home, 
how  it  looks  ,  —  the  fire,  the  books,  —  and  to  see 
you  moving  about.  You  can't  think  what  a  fool  it 
makes  of  me,"  laughing  boyishly.  "No man  knows 
what  it  will  make  of  him,  till  he  has  tried  it.  A  whole 
year  travelling  alone ;  and  to  be  sick  among  stran- 
gers !  Oh !  I  thought  I  should  never  get  back,  nor 
see  the  children,  nor —  Oh,  it  is  so  pleasant,  so 


386  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

pleasant !  And  I  am  pretty  weak  yet.  Don't 
laugh  at  me.  When  I've  had  the  tea, — but  be 
sure  you  get  that  teapot,  — I  shall  be  a  man  again. 
I'm  nothing  but  a  mass  of  nerves  and  seasickness, 
and  sore  lungs,  just  now — it  was  so  cold  on  the 
steamer !  When  I've  had  the  tea,  I  can  see  Van, 
can't  I?  —  No,  that  was  the  cricket,  this  one. 
Move  it  a  little.  You  used  to  kneel  on  this  -side. 
Yes,  that  is  the  very  teapot.  I  wonder  if  it  will 
taste  as  it  used  to.  I  don't  see  why  nobody  wrote 
me  how  thin  you  had  grown.  Oh,  I  am  so  tired  !  It 
is  so  pleasant  here,  so  pleasant !  " 

Thus  he  wandered  on.  Avis  made  the  tea,  and 
they  drank  it  together :  his  eyes  followed  her.  The 
child  slept  upon  his  knee. 

"  When  the  trunks  come  —  I'm  as  bad  as  a  child : 
I  can't  wait  to  show  you  what  I've  got  for  Van  (do 
you  remember  how  we  never  could  wait  with  our 
Christmas  presents — }TOU  and  I  —  those  first  years? 
how  we  used  to  come  skulking  round  to  show  them 
to  each  other  beforehand,  and  how  you  laughed  at 
me ;  but  you  were  the  worst  yourself) .  There's  a 
doll  for  the  girl ;  but  I  stumbled  on  such  an  amaz- 
ing French  notion  for  him:  I  expect  3^011' 11  never 
forgive  me.  It's  a  little  fire-engine,  Avis, — really 
an  exquisite  toy.  I  don't  know  but  he'll  be  set- 
ting us  all  on  fire,  little  villain  !  There's  something 
for  you,  too,  somewhere.  That's  the  only  pleasant 
part  of  going  away,  — getting  ready  to  come  home. 
A  man  never  knows  what  his  home's  worth  to  him, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  387 

till  he's  turned  his  back  on  it.  I  got  Van  a  '  Pil- 
grim's Progress '  too,  — the  best  copy  I  could  find 
in  all  London.  It  took  me  three  days  to  select  that 
book.  I  want  he  should  have  something  to  remem- 
ber his  father  by,  that  he'll  value  when  he  is  a  man, 
and  I  am"  — 

He  broke  off.  It  has  been  said  that  the  soul, 
which  has  always  some  influence  over  the  muscles, 
has  none  over  the  blood.  Avis  supposed  that  she 
might  betray,  but  had  no  conception  of  the  fact  that 
she  emphasized,  the  character  of  what  she  was  en- 
during. Rings  of  blackness  slowly  enlarged  upon 
her  face,  like  the  shadow  of  an  advancing  storm 
upon  a  writhing  lake.  But  she  sat  with  her  head 
turned  from  him  slightly,  bent,  like  a  Mater  Dolo- 
rosa,  over  the  baby  whom  she  had  taken  into  her 
own  arms. 

"  Better,  Philip,  now?"  She  must  say  some- 
thing. 

"  Oh,  so  much  better — so  much  stronger !  I  don't 
know  but  it  will  make  a  live  man  of  me,  after  all, 
coming  home.  Really,  Avis,  I  don't  know  but  that 
was  all  I  needed.  It's  such  a  mistake,  this  sending 
sick  people  philandering  all  over  the  world  alone. 
A  sick  man  wants  his  fireside,  and  his  books,  and 
familiar  ways,  and  all  his  little  silly,  selfish  comforts, 
and  not  to  have  to  take  his  slippers  out  of  a  trunk, 
and  a  Japanese  teapot,  I  believe,"  he  rose,  laughing 
hysterically,  ' c  and  —  some  one  to  make  the  tea  on 
a  cricket  by  the  fire  ;  and  his  —  Come,  Avis,  now 
let  us  go  up  and  see  the  boy." 


388  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Are  you  quite  strong  enough  yet,  Philip?  " 

"  Yes,  yes,  yes  !  "  impatiently.  "  Don't  fret  over 
me.  I  can't  wait  any  longer.  Take  me  to  see  Van 
at  once." 

"  Are  you  sure,  Philip,  that  it  is  best — to  wake  Van 
to-night?  He  sleeps — so  soundly  "  —  She  strug- 
gled for  controlled  speech,  blindly  beating  about  with 
the  mad  instinct  of  love,  which  would  fain  believe 
that  to  save  time  is  to  save  suffering. 

But  now  she  turned  her  face,  and  its  mortal  color 
swept  upon  him.  Slowly,  then,  it  extended  itself 
to  his  own,  as  if  they  had  stepped  hand  in  hand  — 
she  leading  and  he  leaning  —  into  a  half-lit  world. 

"Avis,  how  many  nights  did  you  tell  me  you  sat 
watching?  " 

"  I  did  not  tell  you,  Philip." 

"You  flit  about  me  like — the  shadow  of  a  bird  that 
I  cannot  see.  You  defy  me,  you  escape  me,  as  the 
dying  escape  the  living.  I  have  never  seen  you  look 
so.  It  has  been  coming  on  a  long  time.  Somebody 
should  have  told  me.  And  here  I  am,  —  a  burden, 
a  wreck,  —  a  broken-down  fellow,  on  yowc  hands. 
It  seems  a  hideous  irony  in  fate  to  throw  the  care 
of  a  consumptive  on  such  wasted  hands.  Let  me 
look  at  them.  Don't  be  afraid.  I  will  not  hold 
them  longer  than  }TOU  like.  If  there  were  any  thing 
else  to  be  done  —  anywhere  we  could  go !  I  could 
fight  hard  for  life,  I  think.  That's  half  the  battle, 
they  say.  It  doesn't  come  natural  to  a  man  of  my 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  389 

age  to  sit  down  and  die,  like  a  weasel  in  a  trap.  If 
you  had  been  with  me  in  France  —  if  I  hadn't 
gone  alone,  —  but  what's  the  use  in  dissecting  old 
blunders  ?  A  blunder's  a  blunder,  and  done  with  it, 
only  we'll  do  better  next  tune,  if  we  can  —  eh, 
Avis?" 

If  there  were  an  undertone  of  symbolism  in  his 
words,  it  was  too  slight,  perhaps,  to  expect  her  to 
recognize  it.  He  watched  her  with  his  blind  gaze ; 
but  he  watched  her  constantly.  She  was  used  to  it 
in  these  days :  Van  used  to  watch  her  so,  after  he 
had  been  taken  sick.  There  had  been  no  "  scenes  " 
between  Avis  and  her  husband  since  he  had  come 
home.  They  were  neither  of  them  quite  strong 
enough  for  that.  They  lived  on  and  on,  as  those 
live  who  know  that  one  touch  of  mutual  recognition, 
nay,  even  of  self-recognition  of  certain  emotions, 
will  bring  down  upon  them  a  land-slide  of  gnarled 
and  knotted  things,  whose  upheaval  would  tear  the 
roots  of  soul  and  body.  They  cultivated  that  dul- 
ness  to  their  own  capacity  of  feeling,  which,  when 
thoroughly  acquired,  amounts  to  a  sixth  sense,  and 
becomes  an  element  of  character  more  powerful  than 
the  feeling  itself.  The  divergence  between  them 
had  been  too  wide  for  them  to  resume  that  super- 
ficial comprehension  of  one  another,  and  that  crude 
standard  of  affection  through  which  the  initiatory 
phases  of  married  life  revolve. 

Avis  did  not  think  that  her  husband  was  going  to 
die.  But  come  life  or  death,  come  love  or  loathing, 


390  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

they  should  be  honest  with  themselves,  they  two,  to 
the  heart's  core  now.  She  devoted  herself  to  his 
invalid  wants  with  the  infinite  tenderness  as  natural 
to  her  as  her  sweet  and  even  breath.  But  he  said  to 
himself  sometimes,  — 

"  She  would  do  as  much  for  a  hurt  dog."  For 
her,  she  moved  about  uncertainly.  She  seemed  to 
herself  like  one  who  listens  to  the  interlude  in  some 
nameless  music,  some  long  symphony  whose  chords 
strike  all  around  the  world. 

All  the  while  she  was  conscious  of  crouching  like 
a  tigress  to  save  his  life. 

One  day,  as  he  went  pacing  the  house  importu- 
nately ;  coming  in  now  and  then  to  lay  the  incoherent 
plans  and  hopes  of  disease  before  her;  running  to 
her  with  every  sore  mood,  as  Van  used  to  run  with 
every  scratch ;  wondering,  should  he  try  Colorado, 
the  South,  California,  that  place  in  New  Jersey 
people  called  the  Nice  of  America,  electricity,  mes- 
merism, inhalation,  Spiritualism,  or  the  prayer-cure  ? 

—  she  put  down  her  work  (her  reluctant  fingers  took 
many  nervous  and  extremely  irregular  stitches  in 
those  days),  and  said,  — 

"  Philip,  suppose  /decide  this  matter  for  you?  " 

"  I  wish  you  would!  "  he  cried,  stopping  short. 

"The  most  humiliating  aspect  of  sickness  is  the 

irresolution  it  produces.     A  man's  brain  becomes  a 

shuttlecock.     Mine  is  sore  —  what  there  is  of  it  now 

—  with  surging  to  and  fro  from  plan  to  plan.     And 
something  we  must  do.     I  won't   die  without    a 
tussle  —  yet." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  391 

"It  is  out  of  the  question,  Philip, "  quietly, — 
"  jour  dying,  I  mean.  That  we  will  not  contem- 
plate for  a  moment.  But  we  will  not  risk  a  Har- 
mouth  winter  just  now.  Shall  you  feel  at  rest  to 
leave  it  to  me,  —  what  we  do,  and  how,  and  all 
about  it  ?  Shall  you  feel  the  confidence  in  my  judg- 
ment which  will  be  necessary  to  the  success  of  any 
plan?" 

"  I  do  not  know  how  a  man  could  have  reason  to 
feel  more  confidence  —  in  any  creature,"  he  said  in 
a  low  voice,  throwing  himself  on  the  lounge  beside 
her.  He  was  wondering  with  solemn  shame  what 
kind  of  a  fellow  he  should  have  turned  out,  for 
instance,  if  he  had  been  obliged  to  provide  good 
judgment  for  two.  At  that  moment  he  was  think- 
ing, perhaps  for  the  first  time  quite  distinctly,  what 
a  rock  in  the  topography  of  a  man's  life,  what  a 
corner-stone  of  granite  in  a  human  home,  is  the 
nature  of  a  strong  wife.  All  that  was  strong  in 
himself  stood,  as  column  stands  to  column,  in  proud 
comradeship  to  it.  All  that  was  weakest  of  him 
leaned  upon  her  with  increasing  naturalness,  as  if 
upon  some  mysterious  maternal  power,  as  we  all  of 
us,  soul  of  man  and  soul  of  woman,  lean  alike  without 
dispute  or  shame,  upon  the  mammoth  motherhood 
of  Nature. 

After  a  silence  in  which  she  too,  perhaps,  went 
her  own  way  into  unspoken  and  not  unkindly  revery, 
they  resumed  their  conversation  gently. 

"  Then,  Philip,  if  you  leave  it  to  me,  we  will  go 


392  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

South.   You've  tried  climate  and  solitude :  now  we'll 
try  climate  and  1 —  and  care." 

"  Very  well,  Avis.     And  the  baby?  " 

"  Aunt  Chloe  will  take  the  baby." 

"  Very  well,  Avis.  Do  you  propose  to  beg,  bor- 
row, or  steal?  " 

"Father  and  aunt  Chloe  were  anxious  to  help  us. 
But "  —  she  hesitated. 

"  Of  course.  Father  and  aunt  Chloe  are  very 
kind.  I  think,  however,  I  will  open  a  sanitarium 
as  soon  as  we  get  —  somewhere.  I  shall  be  quite 
able."  He  began  to  pace  the  room  again,  with 
blind  and  bitter  feet. 

"But  Philip  —  it  will  not  be  necessary,  I  think. 
I  forgot  to  tell  you.  While  you  were  gone  a  piece 
of  luck  came  to  us.  I  sold  the  sphinx.  And  I 
have  just  arranged  with  Goupil.  He  is  to  photo- 
graph it.  There  is  a  demand  for  the  picture.  We 
shall  have  money  enough  this  winter.  I  thought 
perhaps  —  I  hoped  —  you  would  like  it  better  so." 
But  she  faltered. 

When  he  spoke,  which  was  not  for  some  minutes, 
he  said  in  a  low  voice,  — 

"  Was  it  best  for  you,  best  for  the  picture,  to  let 
the  photographs  go?  " 

"  Not  best  for  the  picture  "  said  Avis,  with  her 
instinctive  honesty,  "but  best  forme,  best  for  us 
all  now.     And  there  is  indeed  nothing  to  regret.     I 
shall  not  paint  another  picture  —  at  present." 
'Why  not?" 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  393 

"  Let  us  not  talk  about  it,  Philip  "  —  she  whitened 
slowly  about  the  mouth — "I  —  can't  discuss  it." 
But  she  collected  herself  at  once ;  and,  when  he 
began  to  chatter  about  the  sanitarium,  she  listened 
with  the  patience  which  we  lend  so  readily  to  the 
sick,  blessed  beyond  all  small  or  selfish  joy  if  we 
may  indulge  at  any  cost  the  weakness  which  was 
once  the  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  our  days. 

But,  when  she  had  left  him  alone  presently, 
Ostrander  sat  with  knotted  brows.  He  was  think- 
ing about  the  sphinx.  Avis's  success  —  mutilated 
though  it  was  by  care  and  trouble,  nay,  most  of  all, 
by  his  own  failure  —  contrasted  rather  bitterly  with 
his  own  drooping  fortune.  Was  it  possible  for  a 
man  to  be  jealous  of  a  woman,  and  that  woman  his 
own  wife?  The  noble  color  burned  Ostrander's 
sunken  face.  "  Before  I  sink  so  low  as  that,"  he 
said,  "  it  will  be  time  for  me  to  die." 


394  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER  XXH. 

PRINCE  :  "  Enough.    The  memory  of  the  past  be  razed." 
MABIA  :  "  Are  you  a  God  ?  "  — •  KOTZEBUB. 

DELICATE  as  the  marriage  of  shades  in  a 
Florida  shell,  is  the  tutelage  which  prepares 
the  eye  of  the  traveller  for  the  soul  of  the  Florida 
sun.  They  yielded  themselves  to  it,  like  children 
to  a  teacher.  Solitude  is  a  stern  master,  and  will 
have  from  us  all  some  form  of  surrender.  Theirs, 
for  they  journeyed  quite  alone,  taught  them,  first  and 
above  all  else,  what  the  anxious  brain,  and  wearied 
body,  and  breaking  heart  most  blindly  buffet  and 
most  thirstily  receive,  — the  influence  of  atmosphere. 

It  was  to  Avis  one  of  those  subtle  experiences 
whose  suave  surprise  lends  a  new  outlook  to  the 
possible  evolution  of  character  from  the  probable 
novelty  of  scenery  in  the  life  which  is  to  follow  this, 
when,  from  the  narrow  windows  of  the  cars  she  over- 
took the  widening  of  the  infinite  Southern  heavens, 
day  by  day. 

Upon  the  palette  of  the  sky  relaxing  Nature 
spread  her  colors,  as  the  human  artist  does,  deepen- 
ing from  the  pallor  to  the  flush.  Their  last  Northern 
sunset  was  cold,  polished,  and  perfect  as  a  pearl.  The 
first  Virginia  dawn  unfolded  like  a  tea-rose  leaf. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  395 

Down  through  the  great  barrens  the  passion  grew : 
eternal  fire  sat  sentinel  upon  the  low  horizon  of  Caro- 
lina ;  Georgia  took  up  the  torch,  and  ran  with  it, 
like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  from  swamp  to  swamp,  swift 
to  the  everglades,  where  Florida  kneeled  in  purple 
and  scarlet,  like  a  queen  who  was  crowned  in  prayer. 

"  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  third 
day."  Avis,  half  to  her  husband,  more  to  herself, 
said  this  dreamily  as  they  put  the  first  foot  upon  the 
white-hot  sand.  She  was  a  little  sorry  when  she  had 
said  it.  The  words  bore  her  imagination  captive 
at  once  into  that  powerful  old  Bible  allegory,  in  which 
the  love  of  married  man  and  woman  was  found  the 
last  and  greatest,  as  it  was  the  most  intricate,  of 
God's  creative  acts.  She  had  no  doubt  that  Philip's 
fancy  was  as  swift  as  her  own  to  go  wandering,  (ah, 
how  homelessly !)  led  by  her  chance  word  so,  and 
that  to  him,  as  to  her,  the  broad  bosom  of  the  St. 
John's  River  unveiled  itself  with  a  fantastic  mockery, 
as  the  wave  of  the  river  of  life  may  have  flashed 
through  parting  boughs  that  the  wind  beat  when 
exiled  eyes,  over  shamed  and  shrinking  shoulders, 
yearned  to  Eden. 

For  Philip's  fancy  was  never  dull ;  and  in  their 
early  married  days  they  had  dwelt  much  in  that  deli- 
cate, visionary  world,  in  which  imaginative  lovers 
find  the  keenest  and  the  most  permanent  (because 
the  most  varied)  stimulus  to  joy  that  human  feeling 
knows.  These  little  fables,  phrases  of  their  court- 
ship and  bridal  years,  rushed  upon  her  memory  that 


396  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

day,  through  the  blazing  hours  of  their  sail  down 
the  river  to  the  Ancient  City  by  the  Sea.  Tricks  of 
speech  or  eye  or  smile,  daily  ambuscades  of  love, 
all  the  tactics  of  the  heart  that  she  had  long  for- 
gotten, presented  themselves  to  her  thought  persist- 
ently. Dead  days  stalked  by  her,  as  the  dead  trees 
stalked  down  the  strange  and  silent  shores, — days 
whose  dawn  and  twilight,  whose  midnight  and  whose 
noon,  unfolded  each  a  new  petal  in  the  solemn  flower 
of  love.  Scenes  that  she  could  have  stunned  herself 
into  forgetting,  emotions  which  she  would  have 
thought  it  incredible  that  she  could  revivify,  pursued 
her.  Her  past  arose  with  its  grave-clothes  on.  Her 
buried  tenderness  confronted  her  with  the  awful 
immortality  given  to  love,  and  to  love  alone,  of  all 
births  bestowed  upon  the  breathing  soul.  She  had 
not  thought  ever  to  remember,  even  in  heaven,  where 
memory  must  be  the  shadow  by  which  we  read  the 
dial  of  joy,  hordes  of  these  things  that  began  to 
oversweep  the  defiance  of  her  self-defensive  calm. 

She  felt  a  certain  petulance  with  the  surroundings 
which  wrought  this  mood  within  her.  She  did  not 
remember  in  any  of  her  wanderings  to  have  so  quar- 
relled with  the  introspective  influence  of  travel. 
She  reminded  herself  that  she  had  not  come  to 
Florida  to  grow  maudlin  with  drugged  sentiment. 
Her  thought  stepped  out  like  a  disembodied  spirit, 
and  took  a  survey  of  herself,  as  she  sat  there  on  that 
boat,  —  a  hollow-eyed  woman,  past  her  first  youth, 
economically  dressed,  come  thirteen  hundred  miles 


THE  STORY  OF  AVlS.  397 

to  nurse  a  consumptive  husband  —  as  was  clearly  her 
duty  —  through  the  winter.  She  glanced  about  the 
boat,  and  wondered  if  they  looked  like  the  other 
married  people  there,  she  and  Philip, — pale,  fretful 
couples,  fatigued  with  the  dust,  the  jar,  the  heat,  the 
homelessness,  of  travel ;  fatigued,  above  all,  she 
thought,  with  each  other  ;  as  if  marriage  had  become 
to  most  of  them  an  eternal  evening  party,  in  which 
each  believes  himself  to  be  of  all  men  most  miser- 
able, but  gets  him  into  his  white  gloves  conscien- 
tiously, lest  society  strike  him  from  her  calling-list. 

Like  those  two  young  people,  for  instance,  on  the 
after-deck  near  her ;  they  could  not  be  out  of  their 
twenties,  poor  things,  yet  clearly  there  was  no  lon- 
ger any  splendor  in  the  grass,  or  glory  in  the  flower, 
of  life,  to  them.  She  was  the  invalid,  irritable,  and 
a  hard,  ill-controlled  cougher:  he  was  tired  out; 
their  children  were  with  them,  and  hung  about,  cry- 
ing for  their  dinner.  The  sick  woman  complained  of 
every  thing,  and  wished  they  had  never  come  to 
Florida.  Her  husband  looked  on,  poor  fellow,  in 
the  perfect  silence  in  which  the  husband  of  a  weak 
woman,  unless  he  be  the  weaker  of  the  two,  learns 
to  shelter  both  himself  and  her.  They  made  a  dull, 
realistic  Dutch  picture,  sitting  by  themselves,  miser- 
ably on  the  hot  deck.  The  very  cinders  on  those 
people,  deep  from  three  days'  car-travel,  seemed  to 
Avis  somehow  to  accentuate  the  emphasis  of  their 
plain  and  disenchanted  lot.  She  forgot  that  she  and 
Philip  were  just  as  black. 


398  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

She  wondered  what  Philip  was  thinking.  He  had 
strengthened,  rather  than  weakened,  with  the  effort 
of  travelling;  sitting  out  on  the  platform  of  the 
creeping  ears  in  the  wonderful  Georgia  weather, 
hour  after  hour,  like  a  boy  on  his  first  journey; 
drinking  down  the  froth  of  the  sunlight  as  frozen 
men  drink  wine ;  chatting  with  the  captain  on  the 
little  boat,  and  laughing — she  could  hear  him  laugh. 
It  struck  her  with  a  certain  slight  bitterness,  of 
which  she  was  thoroughly  ashamed,  poor  girl!  as 
she  sat  there  alone,  that  he  could  laugh  like  that ; 
that  he,  too,  was  not  driven  by  the  Florida  scenery 
into  small,  cynical  visions  of  his  neighbors,  seeing 
all  life  and  all  love  in  the  Claude  Lorraine  of  their 
own  darkened  story.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  just 
then  that  it  was  not  easy  to  foretell  where  a  fine 
influence,  in  particular  a  tropical  influence,  would 
drive  her  husband  —  in  a  state  of  mental  isolation' 
like  this  that  had  befallen  them  both  —  to  the  cap- 
tain, perhaps,  precisely,  or  to  that  very  cross  couple 
on  the  after-deck,  whose  little  boy  he  was  now  lead- 
ing away  to  the  wheel-house  so  tenderly.  Philip 
could  be  very  tender  when  he  would  ;  God  had  never 
made  a  tenderer  man.  He  brought  the  boy  to  her 
presently,  —  a  pleasant  little  fellow.  The  tears  were 
still  wet  on  the  child's  now  radiant  cheek.  Avis 
stooped  and  kissed  them  away,  as  she  would  have 
brushed  a  speck  from  a  flower.  But,  when  she 
lifted  her  face,  her  husband  was  watching  her,  and, 
as  their  eyes  met,  both  filled.  The  child  ran  back 
to  his  parents.  He  sat  down  beside  her. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  399 

"  He  is  about  the  size  of  "  — 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Avis  quickly. 

"  And  did  you  notice,  Avis,  a  little  something 
about  the  eyelashes  ?  —  some  trick  or  turn  ?  I  thought 
him  almost  like,  at  first.  But  nobody  is  like  Van,  I 
think. — Avis,  do  }TOU  see  what  a  miracle  it  is? 
How  I  bear  this  journe}*?  Is  there  room  for  me 
here  ?  I  don't  want  to  crowd  37ou.  We  are  going 
to  get  in  late,  the  captain  says.  We  shall  see  the 
sunset  and  the  moonrise,  this  first  night,  in  this 
solitary  place." 

His  voice  sunk  to  a  certain  solemnity  as  he  drew 
nearer  to  her,  and  they  leaned  over  the  deck-rail  to 
watch  the  shadows  gather  on  the  water  and  the 
pathless  shore. 

His  face,  too,  as  his  wife  borrowed  a  look  at  it 
in  the  struggling  light,  had  settled  into  a  solemn 
cast,  like  beautiful  hardening  cla}'.  His  sunken 
eye  swept  the  long  untrodden  shores,  the  opaque 
water,  the  beckoning  sky.  This,  then,  was  Florida, 
where  he  was  to  get  well,  or  — 

44  What  is  it,  Philip?" 

Indefinable  as  the  gradation  by  which  the  pall  of 
the  thickets  melted  to  the  blazonry  above  the  forest- 
tops  was  the  motion  with  which  she  stirred  towards 
him.  Uncertain  as  the  leaning  of  the  light  upon  the 
perturbed  river,  to  whose  heart  no  eye  could  see, 
was  the  impulse  of  the  hand  which  he  held  —  groping 
a  little,  for  it  darkened  now  —  to  hers. 

44 1  was  thinking,"  he  said,  44  that  we  have  never 


400  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

been  in  such  a  solitary  place.  You  don't  mind  our 
watching  the  moonrise  together?  We  haven't  done 
such  a  silly  thing  —  for  so  long  !  " 

He  laughed  rather  nervously  ;  but  for  her,  she  did 
not  trust  herself  to  speak.  On  either  hand  the 
forest  glided  by,  —  the  awful  forest  in  which  no  man 
trod.  The  river,  like  all  things  which  seem  to  en- 
large as  they  become  absorbent  of  light,  broadened 
beneath  the  rising  moon.  The  fine  outline  of  the 
pine-fronds  and  the  blurred  gray  tendrils  of  the 
abundant  moss  made  the  sole  change  of  accent  in 
the  level  horizon ;  and  this  itself  acquired  a  depress- 
ing quality,  like  that  of  a  sweet  but  monotonous 
voice.  Their  little  boat  hung,  the  only  sign  of 
breathing  life,  pivoted  in  a  trinity  of  isolation,  a 
wilderness  of  water,  forest,  and  sky.  As  the  moon 
rode  higher,  the  people  on  the  deck  hushed  one  by 
one,  families  gathered  in  silent  groups,  and  the  tired 
children  slept.  The  woman  who  coughed  so  crossly 
had  gone  below. 

Instinctively,  as  they  rounded  into  the  desolate 
landing  at  Tocoi,  Avis  crept  nearer  to  her  husband. 
There  was  something  of  superstition,  perhaps,  in 
the  repressed  shudder  with  which  she  shrank  from 
the  innocent  outline  of  the  clumsy  little  train  that 
waited  for  them.  She  was  so  tired,  that  every  thing 
took  a  symbolic  form  to  her.  Her  swift,  outreach- 
ing  sympathy  gathered  in  all  the  other  women  who 
had  trod  this  dreary  shore  before  her,  homeless, 
anxious,  and  careworn,  battling  for  a  husband's  life. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  401 

It  seemed  as  much  of  a  wrench  to  the  reason  to 
believe  that  beyond  that  eternal  forest  an  unseen  sea 
could  beat,  as,  in  our  earthlier  moments,  it  seems  to 
the  finest  spirit  among  us,  that  life  can  leap  again 
beyond  the  everglades  of  death. 

As  they  cut  their  awed  way  through  it,  looking 
out  from  the  wide  doors  of  the  rude  car,  Ostrander 
said,  — 

4 '  I  am  sure  I  never  was  in  quite  such  a  lonely 
place  in  all  my  life  ;  were  you,  Avis  ?  " 

"  Never,  Philip." 

The  simple  question  was  lightly  asked,  the  quiet 
answer  quickty  given ;  yet  both  fell  silent,  as  if  their 
lips  had  learned  the  words  of  some  grave  and  embar- 
rassing confession.  Avis  trembled  beside  her  hus- 
band, sitting  there  in  the  dark  car.  He  put  his 
hand  upon  hers :  it  was  the  first  time  for  a  long 
while.  Her  pulse  bounded  so  that  he  removed  it. 
His  wife  was  not  a  woman  to  be  won  lightly  for  the 
second  time.  Caresses  could  not  transfigure  for  her 
the  nature  that  had  once  defaulted  to  her.  No  hys- 
teric feeling,  warm  to-day  and  chilled  to-morrow, 
could  restore  to  her  the  shores  of  reverence  upon 
which  her  own  unfathomable  tenderness  had  surged. 
Integral  and  individual  as  her  own  must  be  the  alle- 
giance which  would  be  found  worthy  to  renew  the 
exhausted  tide  of  wedded  joy.  Thus  he  thought, 
with  sad,  abundant  pride.  He  would  not  have  had 
it  otherwise  with  her  for  their  joy's  sake.  They 
two,  alone  there,  seemed  to  him  to  stand  separate 


402  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

and  strange,  bringing  a  soul-sickness  deeper  than 
the  body's  hurt  to  the  healing  of  this  new  and  gen- 
tle land. 

When  they  had  got  into  their  hotel  that  night,  he 
lay  and  watched  her  quite  silently.  He  was,  after 
all,  more  exhausted  than  he  had  thought.  When 
she  had  ordered  up  his  tea,  and  dismissed  the  waiter, 
he  asked  her,  too,  to  rest.  She  thanked  him  for  his 
thoughtfulness,  but  moved  about,  busying  herself  for 
his  comfort,  in  the  little,  brightly-lighted,  barren 
room.  There  was  an  open  fire-place,  and  a  log  of 
light-wood  burning  in  it.  She  stirred  through  the 
resinous,  red  air,  in  her  gray  dress  and  soft  lace : 
she  had  not  put  on  mourning  for  her  boy.  She  knew 
that  her  husband  was  watching  her  ;  but  she  did  not 
know  what  a  sweet  shyness  was  upon  herself,  upon 
her  averted  figure  and  unresponsive  eyes. 

She  came  and  sat  down  by  him  presently;  the 
light- wood  faded  quietly  on  the  hearth.  Their  neigh- 
bor, the  sick  woman  from  the  boat,  was  fretting 
faintly  in  the  adjoining  room.  It  seemed  very  still 
with  them,  and  sheltered. 

"  Are  you  resting,  Philip?  " 

"  Quite  rested.  And  you  —  are  you  content?  Are 
you  glad  we  came  —  this  long  distance  —  by  our- 
selves? " 

"  When  we  have  heard  from  the  baby,  we  shall 
be  quite  content,  Philip.  There  will  be  letters  to- 
morrow, perhaps." 

'  How  strange  it  is,  Avis  — being  together  so  — 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  403 

without  the  children.  We  have  never  travelled  alone 
before,  like  this,  at  least,  since  our  wedding-journey. 
Had  you  thought  of  that?  " 

"  Yes,  Philip,"  after  a  pause. 

"It  is  so  pleasant  —  to  me.  Do  you  like  it, 
Avis  ?  Sha'n't  you  find  it  a  terrible  drag,  shut  up 
with  a  whimsical  sick  fellow  for  so  many  months?  " 

She  lifted  her  face  to  check  him  for  the  idle  ques- 
tion, and  with  it  her  strong,  warm  hand.  He  bowed 
his  head  reverently,  laying  his  pale  cheek  upon  it. 
Her  own  flushed  like  a  girl's  ;  but  she  said  nothing. 
Thus,  still  clinging  to  her,  the  sick  man  slept. 

Avis's  hand  grew  numb :  she  did  not  move  it. 
She  sat  on  in  the  dark,  for  the  fire  died.  The  poor 
woman  slept,  too,  in  the  next  room.  She  heard  the 
sounds  of  summer  through  the  open  window  in  the 
strange  December  air.  In  her  married  life  she 
turned  a  noiseless  leaf. 

Ostrander  was  not  without  his  full  share  of  the 
prejudices  common  to  men  who  have  received,  at 
whatever  remote  period  in  a  life  which  has  run 
counter  to  it,  the  education  of  the  medical  school. 
He  had  an  array  of  opinions  upon  the  sanitary  effects 
and  prospects  of  the  State  of  Florida,  with  which 
he  treated  his  wife,  boyishly  enough  perhaps,  as  the 
wisdom  of  his  selection  seemed  to  make  itself  mani- 
fest in  his  own  case.  Avis  heard  him  with  relaxing 
eyes.  As  he  gained  in  strength,  the  tension  of  care 
loosened  a  little  in  herself.  Nerve  by  nerve,  and 


404  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

muscle  by  muscle,  it  seemed,  her  watchful  body 
yielded  to  the  absence  of  demand  upon  its  resist- 
ance in  the  unassertant  air. 

The  poor  girl  was  almost  in  as  much  need  as  he 
of  the  atmosphere  in  which  sorrow  seems  an  in- 
fringement of  a  newly  discovered  law,  and  care  a 
crime  against  an  hitherto  unguessed,  but  here  un- 
guarded and  undiverted  love. 

They  settled  themselves  in  a  yellow,  old  coquina 
house :  there  were  orange-trees  about  it,  kneeling 
with  their  amber  lamps  ;  the  windows  of  their  room 
looked  to  the  warm  brown  water;  strange  birds 
swayed  by  in  the  flushed  air.  Ostrander  was  ex- 
cited by  every  thing :  he  ran  in  and  out  like  a  child. 
He  kept  coming  up  to  her,  and  saying,  — 

"  Ayis,  don't  you  think  we  shall  like  it?  " 

When  they  had  been  there  a  day  or  two,  he  told 
her  those  people  from  the  boat  were  of  their  fellow- 
boarders.  Avis  idly  asked  if  he  knew  their  names. 

"0>h,  yes!"  he  said,  "  it's  a  French  name, — 
Smith."  Then,  when  they  both  laughed  merrily,  she 
wondered  at  the  lifting  of  her  heart.  It  reminded 
her  of  how  it  was  on  their  wedding-journey,  when 
they  found  each  other  so  amusing,  and  laughter 
leaped  so  lightly  to  their  happy  lips. 

One  day  he  drooped  a  little  with  a  cold,  or  some 
of  the  slight  hinderances  which  stay  the  motion  of 
the  spheres  for  the  invalid  and  those  who  minister  to 
him ;  and  then  he  began  to  worry  about  the  pros- 
pects of  the  family  if  he  should  fail,  after  all,  to  get 
up  again. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  405 

"I  should  be  surprised,"  said  his  wife  in  her 
quiet  way,  "  if  I  could  not  support  this  family, 
whatever  happened.  If  you  fret  yourself  sick,  I 
shall  certainly  have  to  do  it." 

"  Do  you  really  think  you  could  ?  "  he  urged  anx- 
iously. "  It  would  be  such  a  relief  to  think  —  to 
know! —  You  could,  if  any  woman  could.  It 
would  be  so  different  if  you  made  it  a  point,  if  every 
thing  bent  to  it.  Once  you  might  have  done  any 
thing  you  would.  What  a  future  you  had,  Avis, 
when  I  came  in  your  way !  I  don't  know  how  to 
make  you  believe  —  that  I  didn't  mean  to  blight  it 
all." 

"  I  know,  I  know,  Philip."  But  her  breath  be- 
gan to  shorten. 

u  It's  a  pretty  hard  thing,  after  all,  when  a  man 
and  woman  have  actually  married,  not  to  let  things 
go  like  the  rest  of  the  world,"  he  said,  looking  up 
rather  helplessly.  "But  perhaps,  if  I  had  helped 
you  more  —  cared  and  planned  —  I  don't  see  how 
it  all  came  about.  We  didn't  mean  it  to  be  so  when 
we  married,  did  we,  Avis?  " 

She  did  not  answer.  Her  thoughts  rushed  back 
through  the  veins  of  all  those  years,  like  driven 
blood.  She  put  her  hand  to  her  throat.  She  felt 
choked,  as  if  with  a  physical  congestion.  A  passion 
is  a  passion,  be  it  of  the  intellect  or  of  the  heart ; 
and  a  denied  aspiration  dies,  perhaps,  more  dumbly, 
but  never  less  drearily,  than  a  denied  love. 

"Avis!     Have  you  minded  so  much?    And  I 


406  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

have  been  so  absorbed  —  and  did  not  see.    Why, 
my  poor  girl !     Why,  Avis !  " 

For  Avis,  taken  unawares  by  his  tenderness,  hat- 
ing herself  for  the  weakness  to  which,  in  all  their 
married  life,  her  husband  had  never  seen  her  yield 
before,  burst  into  a  paroxysm  of  the  terrible  tears 
which  lie  in  wait  to  avenge  themselves  upon  all 
opulent  self-control. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  407 


CHAPTER  XXHI. 

"  I  ride  from  land  to  land, 
I  sail  from  sea  to  sea, 
Some  day  more  kind  I  fate  may  find, 
Some  night  kiss  thee.  "—SPANISH  BALLAD. 

THE  escaped,  longer  than  the  uncaptured  emotion 
stands  at  bay.  Ostrander  was  conscious  that  it 
required  very  different  elements  of  the  nature  to  woo 
the  bruised  affection  of  the  wife  from  those  which 
had  won  the  hard  surrender  of  the  maiden's  love : 
the  one  thing  might  be  done  by  the  complexity, 
the  other  only  by  the  force,  of  character.  With  the 
unappeasable  self-regret  born  of  the  self-knowledge 
which  only  the  nearest  relations  of  life  can  create  in 
us,  he  thought  of  that  drooping  calyx  of  reverence 
in  his  wife's  heart,  which  all  time  might  not  now  be 
long  enough  for  the  dew  of  his  gathered  and  gather- 
ing fealty  of  feeling  to  refill.  In  his  stronger  mo- 
ments he  kneeled  before  his  lost  ideal  of  himself,  as 
the  select  three  kneeled  upon  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
figuration before  a  vanished  God :  in  his  weaker  ones 
he  tried  to  forget  it.  In  the  first  he  despaired  of 
her ;  in  the  other  he  yearned  for  her.  Her  allegi- 
ance without  her  respect  taunted  him ;  her  tender- 
ness without  her  trust  shamed  him.  Ostrander's 
love  for  his  wife  had  been  the  supreme  fact  of  his  life. 


408  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 

In  his  expressive  medical  phrase,  he  recognized  it 
as  one  of  the  proximate  principles  of  his  soul.  No 
other  woman,  or  so  he  believed,  could  have  com- 
manded so  long,  or  reclaimed  so  autocratically,  the 
tissue  of  his  elastic  fancy.  He  was  at  a  loss  how 
to  approach  her  gentle  and  devoted  calm.  He 
mourned  his  own  crippled  power  to  command  in 
her  that  idealization  which  is  the  essential  condi- 
tion of  the  love  that  woman  bears  to  man. 

Regret,  which  had  been  sentiment  at  home,  was 
sentience  in  Florida.  The  sunlight  fell  in  golden 
showers,  through  which  they  trod  athirst.  All  the 
colors  of  life  deepened  in  this  prismatic  land.  They 
walked  with  joined  hands,  but  averted  faces.  The 
splendor  slept  upon  the  warm,  strange  water,  upon 
the  mosaic  of  shell-strewn  sand,  the  green  pulses  of 
the  orange-leaves,. the  veiled  crimson  heart  of  the 
banana-blossom,  the  bursting  mood  of  the  pome- 
granate ;  but  neither  saw  that  upon  the  cheek  of  the 
other  the  same  glow  lay. 

One  day  he  said  something,  carelessly  enough, 
about  a  beautiful  Parisian  whom  he  met  at  this  time 
last  year ;  and  then,  turning,  he  surprised  the  slow 
color  climbing  his  wife's  face.  He  came  close  to  her 
at  once,  and  said  with  a  certain  gentle  authority,  — 

"Avis,  look  at  me,  please.  So;  that  will  do. 
Now  listen.  Once  before,  when  I  spoke  of  people 
I  had  met,  you  looked  like  that.  It  was  the  night  I 
came  back,  sitting  by  the  fire  at  home ;  even  then, 
—  that  night.  Grant  me  at  least  the  justice  of  re- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  409 

membering  that  a  man  doesn't  make  a  fool  of  him- 
self—  in  such  a  way  —  more  than  once  ;  and  believe 
that  I  had  the  brains  to  profit  by  a  bitter  lesson, 
if  you  cannot  give  me  credit  for  the  heart.  Even 
if  you  cannot  see  —  that  other  women,  —  if  you  do 
not  know  ' ' — 

He  turned  (they  were  strolling  on  the  beach), 
and  impetuously  began  to  walk  the  other  way.  After 
a  moment's  hesitation  she  followed,  and  overtook 
him. 

"  You  forget,  Philip,"  she  said,  "  how  long  a  scar 
throbs  in  a  woman's  flesh.  But  indeed  I've  never 
meant  to  remind  —  or  taunt  you  about  any  thing." 

4 '  I  wish  you  would  !  "  he  cried  hotly.  ; '  I  wish  you 
had !  I  think  I  should  feel  better  if  you  would  out 
with  it,  and  tell  me  what  a  contemptibly  weak  fellow 
you  thought  me  —  if  you  would  say  the  very  worst." 

"  Oh,  hush  !  "  said  Avis  in  her  rich  maternal  voice. 
She  did  not  say  there  was  no  worst.  That  was  not 
true.  She  only  put  her  hand  upon  his  arm,  and 
spared  him  with  strong  silence. 

When  he  came  to  think  it  over,  he  blessed  her  for 
it  with  all  his  heart.  He  felt  that  he  could  not  have 
borne  to  hear  his  wife  say  what  he  knew  she  had 
thought  of  him.  On  the  other  hand,  he  would  have 
shrunk  from  a  superficial  tenderness — ignoring  facts 
too  keenly  present  in  the  minds  of  both  —  as  from 
a  kind  of  gruel  adapted  to  invalids  and  children. 
Silence,  more  kindly  and  more  intricately  than  any 
speech,  he  began  to  hope,  would  now  interpret  them 


410  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

to  each  other.  He  would  strive  to  make  himself  wor- 
thy to  use  the  deaf-mute  alphabet  of  fine  souls.  He 
fancied  that  she  leaned  a  little  upon  his  arm  in  walk- 
ing home  that  day :  it  was  a  bright  day,  and  he  had 
felt  quite  strong. 

They  walked  on  the  narrow  sea-wall,  where  two 
only  can  tread  abreast.  She  looked  very  young  and 
girlish  that  day,  in  her  palmetto  hat  and  white  linen 
dress. 

"When  they  came  in,  the  boarding-house  dinner- 
bell  was  ringing,  and  the  people  in  their  light  clothes 
collecting  merrily ;  the  little  boy  who  looked  like 
Van  ran  up  with  orange-buds  for  Philip ;  the  noon 
surged  in  across  the  veranda  in  a  tide  of  light  and 
heat ;  unfamiliar  tropical  perfumes  were  in  the  air ; 
and  the  December  roses  nodded  at  the  windows. 
Avis  had  a  confused  festal  feeling,  as  if  the  people 
and  the  roses,  and  the  light  and  the  child,  had  waited 
for  her  and  Philip  to  come  in. 

She  bade  him  go  on  without  her,  that  he  need  not 
spend  his  strength  to  climb  the  stairs ;  and  herself 
ran  up  lightly.  She  tossed  the  ribbons  about  in  her 
drawer  to  choose  a  fresh  one,  a  golden  one,  as  near 
the  shade  of  the  sunlight  as  she  could  find.  She  held 
it  against  the  shimmer  on  the  wall,  laughing,  to  try 
the  match.  She  plunged  her  hands  and  face  into  the 
cool  water ;  her  own  eyes  looked  back  to  her  from 
the  glass,  dewy  and  sweet,  as  she  brushed  the  damp 
rings  of  her  hair. 

"  Do  I  look  still  so  young?"  she  thought.    In 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  411 

the  next  room  she  could  hear  their  neighbors  with 
the  French  name.  The  sick  woman  was  berating  her 
husband  bitterly  —  it  was  something  about  the  soup. 
Avis  turned  round,  standing  alone  there,  and  stretched 
her  arms  out  solemnly  as  if  she  would  yearn  through 
the  solid  wall  to  gather  the  poor  creature  in.  Her 
heart  cried  out  to  those  strange  people, 

"You  —  it  is  not  too  late  for  you  —  save  your 
love  !  Oh,  save  your  married  love  !  " 

That  was  Christmas  week.  She  and  Philip  went 
out  and  ransacked  the  little  curiosity  shops  together, 
to  find  something  for  the  baby.  There  were  three 
letters  from  aunt  Chloe  that  week  —  and  the  child 
was  well.  Their  hearts  lightened,  and  the  stress 
of  anxiety  to  which  the  happiest  earthly  parentage 
must  bow  an  aching  shoulder  yielded  kindly  for 
them.  Bereavement^  and  sickness,  peril  and  sepa- 
ration, slipped  by  them  in  the  golden  weather,  with 
a  suggestion  of  the  solemn  sweetness  with  which 
care  may  seem  to  elude  rather  than  escape  us  in 
Heaven. 

Ostrander  said,  — 

"  I  believe  I  am  going  to  get  well." 

On  Christmas  Eve  they  started  out  to  the  little 
churchyard  beyond  the  city  gates,  whose  impres- 
sive ruin,  cut  against  the  setting  sun,  said  to  both 
that  of  which  neither  spoke.  They  sat  down  by 
one  of  the  graves,  —  a  child's  grave,  nameless  and 
deserted. 


412  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  See,  Philip !  "  said  Avis  in  a  low  voice,  "  the 
mounds  here  are  strewn  with  shells,  instead  of  the 
flowers  that  one  sees  elsewhere  :  but  this  poor  little 
fellow  has  none ;  I  will  go  and  find  some."  She 
wandered  off  alone,  while  he  sat  and  watched  her 
from  his  solitary  place.  The  light  fell  fast;  the 
massive  face  of  Fort  Marion  darkened  down  upon 
the  little  beach  where  she  strolled  in  sweet,  search- 
ing attitudes,  that  lent  so  much  gentleness  to  the 
courageous  contours  of  her  figure.  It  was  almost 
dark  when  she  came  back  to  say,  — 

"  I  could  only  find  a  few  poor  little  dull  things ; 
but  they  will  do." 

She  stooped,  and  laid  the  shells  in  the  form  of  a 
cross,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  quiet  place, 
upon  the  grave.  "  I  am  sure  it  was  a  little  boy," 
she  said. 

Then,  for  it  darkened  steadily.,  they  went  in  silence 
home.  Just  before  they  reached  the  house,  Ostran- 
der  said  abruptly,  — 

"  Avis,  all  the  time  you  were  on  that  beach,  I  saw 
the  boy." 

"The  child  from  the  churchyard?"  asked  Avis, 
smiling,  to  humor  a  sick  man's  fancy,  but  wishing 
that  she  had  not  left  him  so  long  in  that  malarial 
place. 

"  No  —  Van.  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you;  but  I 
think  I  had  better.  I  saw  Van  quite  distinctly." 

"Are  you  sick,  Philip?"  asked  Avis,  stopping 
short. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  413 

"  Perfectly  well.  Not  so  well  this  winter,  and  I 
never  had  one  of  these  optical  illusions  before  in  all 
my  life.  My  mother  used  to  have  them,  and  they 
tell  some  amazing  stories  about  my  grandfather's 
last  sickness.  I  have  often  wanted  to  experience  a 
touch  of  the  thing,  to  see  what  it  is  like.  It  is  very 
strange/' 

"  What  was  it  like?  "  asked  Avis  a  little  uneasily, 
but  walking -on.  She  drew  her  hand  a  trifle  closer 
through  his  arm,  and  joined  her  fingers  upon  it :  she 
used  to  walls  with  him  in  that  way,  now  long  since. 

"  He  came  out  of  the  water,"  said  Ostrander, 
u  and  ran  along  the  beach.  He  had  his  little  Christ- 
mas stocking  in  his  hand.  You  did  not  see  him,  and 
he  pulled  at  your  dress." 

Involuntarily  Avis  cried  out :  there  was  a  certain 
terrible  realism  in  her  husband's  quiet  words  and 
the  curious,  scientific  interest  of  his  tone. 

"  Then  you  turned  round,  and  he  took  hold  of 
your  hand.  I  saw  him  put  one  of  the  shells  in  his 
stocking.  He  had  on  that  little  blue  sack  aunt 
Chloe  gave  him,  with  white  buttons.  Then  he  ran 
along  again,  and  waded  into  the  water.  I  saw  him 
quite  plainly.  He  "  — 

"What  did  he  do,  Philip?"  asked  Avis  in  a 
voice  of  awe  ;  for  Philip  paused. 

"  He  beckoned  to  me.  He  beckoned  to  me  twice. 
Then  you  came  up  the  slope,  and,  when  I  looked 
again,  he  was  gone.  Positively,  for  the  moment  my 
breath  came  hard,  and  I  was  a  little  faint  and  sick 
when  you  found  me. 


414  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  There  is  some  nervous  inaction  of  the  retina.  I 
had  one  such  case  in  the  hospital  before  I  graduated. 
I  believe  I'll  read  up  a  little  on  it  to-night.  Avis, 
do  you  know  I  haven't  coughed  once  for  three  whole 
days?" 

It  was  on  Christmas  that  he  said  abruptly,  coming 
out  from  mass  in  the  gray  cathedral  into  which  they 
had  wandered,  "If  I  die  before  you  do,  don't  ex- 
pect me  to  chatter  about  what  I'm  thinking,  —  on 
my  death-bed,  I  mean.  It  won't  be  my  way.  I 
know  what  I  believe,  and  you  know,  and  I  don't 
believe  any  thing  quite  so  thoroughly  as  that,  if  I  get 
into  the  other  life  on  any  grounds,  I  shall  take  some- 
how a  pretty  fresh  start,  — I  need  it,  God  knows  !  — 
more  of  a  start  than  I'm  likely  to  get  here  now. 
Sometimes  I  wonder  if  He'll  take  the  trouble  to 
make  over  such  a  half-moulded  fellow.  I  don't  know 
whether  I'm  worth  it,  upon  my  soul!  Now,"  he 
added,  "I  couldn't  have  said  that  a  month  ago, 
when  I  really  thought  I  was  going  to  die.  How 
amazingly  natural  good  luck  is !  I  am  as  used  to 
getting  well  as  if  I  had  never  been  sick." 

But,  when  they  had  come  home,  he  turned  to  her 
rather  sadly,  — 

"  An  ailing  man  talks  so  much  about  himself!  — 
as  if  people  could  care." 

His  wife  did  not  answer  for  the  moment ;  then  she 
crept  up,  and  put  her  hand  upon  his  hair,  passing  it 
to  and  fro.  He  remembered  the  first  time  she  ever 
did  this,  —  one  winter-day  before  they  were  married, 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  415 

when  his  head  was  reeling  with  pain ;  and  how  aunt 
Chloe  came  in,  and  just  how  Avis  looked,  standing 
over  him,  shamed  and  sweet.  He  wondered  if  she 
remembered  too.  He  thought  what  a  subtle  bond  is 
the  bare  community  of  memory  given  to  those  who 
pass  their  lives  together ;  how  eternal  is  the  vicinity 
we  give  to  the  soul  that  we  suffer  to  share  our  memo- 
rable joy  or  grief  or  peril. 

Impulsively  he  put  his  hand  out,  and  drew  his  wife 
down  upon  the  arm  of  the  chair ;  but  he  felt  her 
tremble,  and  so  released  her.  She  stood  for  a  minute 
uncertain :  he  did  not  touch  her  again,  and  neither 
spoke.  All  the  brilliant  ingenuity  of  Ostrander's  na- 
ture drooped  before  the  task  of  wooing  an  estranged 
wife.  He  got  up  awkwardly,  and  said  that  Smith 
baby  was  crying  again ;  and  then  he  and  Avis  sat 
down  at  separate  windows,  with  their  faces  to  the 
sultry  Christmas  night. 

But  after  this  he  fell  into  a  low,  discouraged  state. 
He  suffered  a  brief  attack  of  pleurisy,  and  complained 
of  the  shortness  of  his  breath.  He  maintained  that 
the  air  disagreed  with  him,  and  that  they  should  move 
at  once. 

Mr.  Smith  expressed  a  desire  to  join  them,  on  the 
ground  that  Mrs.  Smith  found  her  hands  cold  in 
Augustine.  The  little  part}'  wandered  up  and  down 
the  river,  as  Florida  parties  will,  subject  only  to  the 
caprices  of  its  invalids,  touching  here  and  there  for 
a  day  or  so,  at  hotels  or  sanitariums,  as  the  restless 
fancy  took  them,  and  absorbed  in  the  exhaustive  and 


416  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

enlivening  discussion  of  fogs  and  fever.  After  a 
week  or  more  of  this,  Avis  induced  her  husband,  who 
was  growing  scarcely  paler  than  herself,  to  bring  it 
to  an  end. 

"You're  right,"  he  said  faintly.  "It  is  killing 
us  both.  We  will  spend  the  winter  at  the  next 
landing. ' ' 

This  happened  to  be  Pilatka.  Here,  therefore, 
they  yielded  their  search  for  the  impossible,  and  b}^ 
windows  that  scanned  the  great  river,  drew  breath, 
and  missed  the  sea. 

Mr.  Smith  drew  breath  and  halted  too.  Mrs. 
Smith  was  sensitive  to  the  alligators,  and  was  of  opin- 
ion that  another  night  on  board  boat  would  strike  to 
the  pneumo-gastric  nerve. 

Here  Ostrander  fell  first  into  calm,  then  lethargy, 
then  energy. 

The  new  year  blossomed  unguardedly.  He  sub- 
mitted himself  to  the  regal  weather.  In  the  fine 
quality  of  the  cooler  season  he  gained  daily.  He 
ceased  to  cough.  He  chatted  with  the  other  recu- 
perating invalids  about  the  hotels  and  shore,  bringing 
home  magic  tales  of  the  healing  genii  in  the  flower- 
burdened  air.  He  found  a  Massachusetts  college- 
boy  with  a  bronchial  cough,  sick  with  grief  at  drop- 
ping behind  his  class.  He  began  to  tutor  him  a 
little  in  his  Greek.  Avis  saw  that  he  colored  with 
pleasure  when  the  hour  came  for  the  lesson.  The 
poor  fellow  was  overwhelmed  with  a  pathetic  joy  to 
be  doing  a  man's  work  again. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  417 

When  the  professor  wrote  from  Harmouth,  one 
day,  that  he  had  heard  of  an  opening  in  a  Western 
college,  which  his  son-in-law's  complete  recovery 
might  throw  in  his  way,  he  said  excitedly,  — 

"  Father  is  very  good.  But  really,  Avis,  I  don't 
know  but  we  can  do  better  than  that.  We  might 
start  a  boarding-school  in  Florida  —  or,  if  that, 
wouldn't  work,  the  sanitarium  would." 

Avis,  painting  orange-blossoms  for  aunt  Chloe, 
said  only,  — 

"  We  will  see,  Philip. 

She  could  no  more  have  quarrelled  just  then  with 
the  characteristic  effervescence  of  his  returning 
strength,  than  she  could  have  revised  and  annotated 
her  little  boy's  prayers.  She  had  so  long  stood, 
strained,  staring  death  out  of  countenance  for 
Philip's  sake,  that  his  very  weaknesses  had  grown 
sacred  to  her  ;  as  the  faults  of  Lazarus  may  have  be- 
come to  the  tender  eyes  of  Mary.  With  that  super- 
lative vagueness  through  which  we  see  the  excep- 
tions taken  by  another  to  our  own  force  of  character, 
Ostrander  was  perhaps  conscious  of  this. 

One  night  in  January,  there  befell  a  warm  and 
wonderful  moon,  which  impelled  all  the  unresting 
stream  of  tourist  life  into  the  open  air.  Ostrander 
was  especially  stimulated  by  the  stir,  the  chatter,  the 
scented  wind,  the  Southern  sky.  He  begged  Avis 
to  go  with  him  —  awa}^  he  said,  from  all  these  peo- 
ple —  for  a  row  upon  the  river.  He  would  manage 
the  boat  himself  at  first.  She  said  nothing :  it  was 


418  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

her  delicate  tact  that  the  limits  of  his  strength 
should  come  as  a  discovery  to  the  invalid,  rather 
than  a  dogma  from  the  nurse.  In  a  few  minutes  he 
yielded  the  oars  to  her  with  a  sigh.  She  took  them 
in  silence,  and  in  silence  they  rose  and  fell  upon  the 
bright  resistant  current. 

Avis,  as  she  rowed,  turned  her  face  to  the  forest, 
whose  peaks  of  blackness  rose  on  either  hand.  The 
river  pierced  them  like  a  bright  defile,  narrowing  as 
they  entered  it.  She  thought  how  the  light  lay  on 
the  sea,  beating  beyond  over  there  at  the  left,  deep 
miles  across  the  untrodden  tangle,  where  the  long 
bar  leaned  out  that  makes  the  entrance  to  the  St. 
Augustine  Harbor  one  of  the  most  perilous  feats 
known  to  the  navigators  of  the  American  coast. 
She  and  Philip  seemed  shut  in  here,  and  secure,  on 
the  patient  river.  Perhaps  some  poor  sailor  yonder 
on  the  unseen  sea  came  at  that  moment,  daring  his 
fate, — the  most  cruel  that  the  mariner's  chart  can 
know,  — the  resistance  of  shifting  sand.  They  were 
safe,  —  they  two.  She  leaned  over  to  look  into  the 
stream :  she  blessed  its  passionless,  contracted  cur- 
rent. She  had  called  the  St.  John's  River  humdrum 
sometimes  by  daylight,  a  tame  story,  nothing  to 
be  done  with  it  but  follow  it  to  the  tiresome  *end ; 
now  it  stretched,  transfigured  and  electric.  The 
sky  seemed  to  stoop  with  the  undue  burden  of  its 
stars.  The  moon  hung  high,  and  the  water  rose  a 
little  under  the  warm  wind.  A  few  boats  only  quiv- 
ered in  sight,  —  so  few  as  to  express  rather  than 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  419 

relieve  the  phantasmal  solitude  of  the  place :  their 
colored  skippers  cut  like  ebony  carving  about  the 
rigging.  Indistinct  voices  drifted  from  them,  and 
sunk  again,  as  Avis  and  her  husband  beat  up  the 
narrowing  shores  alone. 

She  beached  the  boat  presently.  They  met  no 
one,  and  walked  silently  upon  the  coarse  white  sand, 
close  to  the  water's  edge.  Avis  said,  — 

"  This  river  is  like  that  old  book  of  Carove's, 
about  the  soul.  It  seems  to  be  a  story  without  an 
end." 

He  sat  down  after  a  little  while  ;  for  his  capricious 
strength  flagged.  Avis  wandered  up  and  down, 
dim  as  a  nereid  upon  the  shore :  he  could  hear  the 
grains  of  sand  crackle  beneath  her  feet.  There 
were  now  no  sails  in  sight  upon  the  uneasy  current. 
Between  the  forest  on  this  hand,  and  the  forest  on 
that,  the  river  lay  desolate.  The  dead  trees  upon 
its  banks  wore  winding-sheets  of  moss  ;  they  stretched 
their  boughs  across  the  separating  stream:  those 
that  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  interlocked  branches 
in  a  manner  in  which  it  was  impossible  not  to  see  a 
pathetic  and  at  the  same  time  grim  likeness  to  hu- 
man gestures.  In  the  half-lights,  sky  and  shore  and 
river  alike  grew  fluent  and  foreign,  till  whether 
one  walked  upon  the  stream,  or  sailed  upon  the 
sand,  or  sank  upon  the  clouds,  the  truant  fancy 
wondered,  with  a  kind  of  happy  terror,  such  as  that 
soul  might  feel  which  first  escaped  the  body  on  a 
moonlit  night. 


420  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

It  was  a  spot  to  drive  the  lonely  from  each  other, 
and  to  draw  the  loving  near. 

Ostrander's  figure,  where  he  sat  solitary,  melted 
and  formed  in  the  gray  uncertainties  of  the  air.  As 
his  wife  stood,  turning  hither  and  thither,  she  was 
not  sure  where  she  had  left  him.  He  seemed  to 
have  vanished  from  her.  She  turned  back  with 
beating  heart.  He  watched  her  coming  through  the 
unreal  light. 

The  moon  was  full  in  his  face ;  with  his  head 
upon  his  bent,  thin  wrist,  he  sat  with  lifted  eyes. 
She  sat  down  beside  him.  They  could  not  see  the 
lights  of  the  little  town.  They  were  quite  alone  in 
the  visionary  place.  Without  speech  and  without 
touch,  Avis  was  made  aware  that  the  moment  had 
become  a  crisis  for  them  both.  She  dared  not  look 
at  her  husband. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  one  careless  breath  now 
would  completely  disorder  her  self-control.  Whether 
she  should  go  flinging  her  arms  above  her  head,  and 
leaping  down  that  unsubstantial  shore,  resistant  of 
him  ;  or  whether  she  should  spend  herself  upon  him 
with  a  storm  of  long-repressed  feeling,  which  she 
was  scathingly  conscious  would  not  facilitate  that 
intelligent  comprehension  of  one  another  in  which 
she  believed  that  their  sole  hope  of  future  happiness 
must  lie, — this  five-years  wife,  acquainted  with 
bereavements,  worn  with  care,  and  flaj'ed  by  anxiety, 
could  not  trust  herself  to  guess. 

"  Avis,"  said  her  husband  suddenly,  "  we  won't 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  421 

have  any  scene  or  bother  about  it;  but  there  is 
something  I  want  to  say  to  you." 

"  Very  well,  Philip,"  gently. 

"  I  don't  know  that  it's  of  any  use,  either,  to  talk 
about  it,"  mused  Philip  uncertainly.  "  Most  things 
are  better  let  alone  between  people  who  —  I  wonder 
if  you  think  a  man's  worst  is  the  real  of  him,  Avis? 
There  —  hush !  Don't  try  to  answer  such  a  question. 
It  doesn't  deserve  an  answer.  But  what  I  want  to 
say  is  this,  It  does  seem  to  me  that  there  must  have 
been  something  in  me  worth  loving,  or  you  wouldn't 
have  cared  for  me  in  the  first  place. 

"  Things  might  have  been  worse,"  he  added,  lift- 
ing his  head  a  little  ;  ' '  and  all  that  —  these  elements 
of  character  that  you  loved  are  real :  they  are  not 
dead.  If  you  would  think  of  this  sometimes  !  "  he 
said  rather  pitifully. 

He  looked  up  across  the  uncertain  shadow  that  her 
tall  figure  cast  between  them.  His  wife  had  risen, 
and  stood  over  him  with  streaming  eyes  and  choking 
speech.  That  very  intelligent  comprehension  of  one 
another  seemed  no  nearer  to  her  than  ever.  Was  it 
possible,  after  all,  that  people  might  be  happy  just 
to  love  one  another,  without  understanding  any  thing 
about  it? 

"  I  cannot  seem  to  make  up  my  mind  to  bear  it," 
said  Philip  Ostrander,  not  without  dignity,  "  that  my 
wife  should  not  respect  me  enough  to  love  me." 

Then  in  the  unreal  light  she  stooped  to  him,  crying 
out  pathetically ;  but  what  she  said,  or  if  she  said  any 


422  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

words,  neither  lie  nor  herself  could  at  that  moment 
tell.  He  held  up  his  hands.  In  the  unreal  light  it 
seemed  to  him  as  if  she  bent  from  a  great  height  to 
restore  to  him  the  married  kiss  which  he  had  lost. 
But  he  did  not,  or  he  dared  not,  draw  her  to  his  level. 

The  moon  waned,  and  they  went  home.  The  river 
was  deserted.  The  wind  was  high  ;  but  the  current 
bore  them  powerfully  on.  Avis  rowed  sturdily,  and 
they  did  not  talk.  The  lights  of  the  little  town  nod- 
ded to  welcome  them.  On  either  hand  the  kneel- 
ing moon  slowly  veiled  the  colossal  face  of  the 
wilderness. 

They  talked  a  little  when  they  had  come  home,  in 
that  small  surface-mood  to  which  the  deepest  wedded 
romance  lies  so  near,  —  as  to  whether  she  had  rowed 
too  far,  and  if  he  had  taken  cold,  and  why  Mrs. 
Smith  did  not  cough  to-night,  and  if  the  evening 
mail  had  come,  and  how  aunt  Chloe  had  the  baby 
well  asleep  by  this  time,  — little  lassie  !  their  babj^, 
thirteen  hundred  miles  away,  —  and  how  she  would 
have  grown  when  they  got  home,  and  if  she  would 
know  them,  and  what  they  should  take  her.  But 
Ostrander  watched  his  wife  with  restless  eyes.  How 
resolute  her  rich  motions  about  the  half-lit  room ! 
He  was  growing  half  impatient  with  this  motherly 
kind  of  affection  she  gave  him.  It  was  no  com- 
fort to  him  that  he  knew  it  was  the  best  that 
he  deserved.  Beside  her  quarried  loyalty  his  own 
frailer  instincts  had  never  seemed  to  him  smaller  and 
sadder  than  they  did  that  night.  Never  before  had 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  423 

he  perceived  the  spiritual  dignity  of  constancy ;  per- 
haps —  since  it  is  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  lofti- 
ness of  a  truth  that  personal  humility  is  requisite  to 
its  apprehension  —  he  had  never  before  distrusted 
himself  sufficiently  to  perceive  it.  Her  love,  he 
thought,  like  the  statues  of  Angelo,  had  been  struck 
out  at  the  beginning  from  the  holy  marble  ;  his,  like 
the  work  of  lesser  sculptors,  from  the  experimental 
clay. 

"  Shall  I  light  the  lamps? "  she  said  at  last. 

"Don't  you  like  it  better  as  it  is?"  he  asked 
doubtfully. 

"Perhaps  so  —  yes.  Do  you  want  any  thing, 
Philip  ?  Is  it  time  for  your  medicine  ?  There !  I 
have  not  rung  for  your  glass  of  milk .  Let  me  call 
Jeff." 

"  Please  not  ring  —  now.  Can't  you  sit  and  rest 
a  little ?  You  must  be  very  tired." 

"  Just  as  you  like,  Philip." 

She  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  dim  room,  uncer- 
tain for  that  moment.  The  light  from  the  unlatched 
door  fell  in.  The  halls  were  deserted  and  still. 
Outside,  in  the  peculiarly  dense  and  appalling 
shadows  that  follow  the  foliage  of  orange-trees  upon 
a  moonlit  night,  the  white  flowers  hung  wearily. 

"  I  have  been  such  a  care,"  he  said  tremulously 
through  the  dark,  "  for  so  long !  You  have  borne  so 
much,  Avis,  and  so  patiently !  Now  I'm  getting 
well,  don't  you  think  I'm  fit  to  take  my  share  of 
things?  Oh,  come  here,  and  let  us  talk  about  it! 


424  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

Come,  my  poor  girl,  poor  girl !  Don't  you  "know  how 
tired  you  are?" 

Perhaps  it  was  the  words  ;  perhaps  it  was  the  tone. 
Change  and  sickness  had  not  jarred  the  quality  of 
Ostrander's  rare  voice.  It  affected  his  wife  just  then 
like  those  strains  of  music  which  a  heavy  heart  is 
more  hurt  than  healed  to  hear. 

A  torrent  of  memory  overtook  her.  Bound  emo- 
tions began  to  struggle  in  it.  All  the  repressed 
suffering  of  a  woman  to  whom  it  has  been  given  to 
carry  her  husband's  nature,  as  she  has  lifted  that  of 
her  children,  through  a  lonely  and  laborious  married 
life,  seemed  to  come  sweeping  over  her,  wave  upon 
wave,  in  a  tide  to  which  she  could  see  no  end. 

He  expected  that  she  would  come  up  and  take  his 
face  between  her  hands  ;  call  him  her  poor  boy  per- 
haps, in  that  maternal  way  of  hers  from  which  he 
knew  at  that  moment  his  manhood  would  revolt ; 
and  what  would  happen  next  he  could  not  possibly 
foretell. 

But,  like  a  fascinated  girl  to  her  lover,  Avis,  in  the 
dim  room,  turned  and  crept  to  him.  His  starved 
arms  shook  as  they  closed  about  her.  He  prayed 
that  only  his  ideal  of  himself  might  touch  his  wife 
at  that  moment.  She  put  up  her  hand  to  his  cheek 
in  her  old  way. 

' '  Oh,  I  am  so  tired  !  —  tired  out,  tired  out.  Don't 
tall?  to  me  —  oh  !  there  is  nothing  to  say.  It  was  a 
good  while  —  pulling  along  alone  —  and  I  thought 
you  did  not  care." 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  425 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

"  'Tis  most  true,  two  souls 
.  .  .  Let  them  suffer 

The  gall  of  hazard,  so  they  grow  together, 
Will  never  sink."  —  JOHN  FLETCHEB. 

"  Discords  quenched  by  meeting  harmonies 
Die  in  the  large  and  charitable  air  ; 
And  all  our  rarer,  truer,  better  self  — 
That  better  self  —  shall  live."  —  GEORGE  ELIOT. 

THEY  seemed  to  themselves  now  to  have  become 
the  discoverers  of  the  State  of  Florida.  Above 
them  widened  new  heavens  ;  below  them  a  new  earth 
leaped.  Lonely  and  awed  as  lovers,  they  wandered 
about  the  forests  and  the  shore.  He  was  boyish 
about  having  her  with  him.  She  shared  his  walks, 
his  drives,  his  sails.  He  drooped  if  they  were  parted 
for  an  hour.  His  breath  and  color  deepened ;  his 
recovery  presented  itself  to  them  as  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. 

He  talked  a  good  deal,  —  more  often  of  their 
future,  sometimes  of  all  that  they  had  put  behind 
them.  He  would  come  up  excitedly  and  say,  — 

"  If  we  don't  make  it  work  at  the  "West,  Avis,  what 
then  ?  Shall  you  be  contented  to  come  back  here  ? 
You  and  I  could  be  happy  here  forever  ;  couldn't  we  ? 
And  we  could  educate  the  girl  ourselves."  Then  she 
would  listen,  smiling,  and  put  up  her  hand,  and  say 


426  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

nothing:  she  liked  better  to  let  him  talk  and  go 
dreaming.  And  he,  reverently  turning  his  cheek,  still 
hollow  as  it  was,  upon  her  palm,  would  slide  intently 
ofl. 

If  his  health  gave  way  again  at  the  West — but  of 
course  he  meant  to  try  it  faithfully ;  that  was  under- 
stood. If  the  climate  proved  too  irritating,  or  the 
class-room  drudgery  —  but  he  thought  he  should 
know  better  how  to  manage  that  another  time. 
Still  it  was  a  comfort  to  know,  that,  if  worst  came 
to  worst,  they  could  return,  and  start  the  sanitarium 
or  the  boarding-school.  It  would  be  quite  practica- 
ble to  find  a  suitable  housekeeper :  Avis  should  not 
be  exhausted  by  that.  Or,  if  that  failed,  there  was 
the  orange-business.  He  was  convinced  that  there 
was  room  for  a  large  orange-grove  even  here  ;  and, 
farther  up  the  river,  a  little  Northern  pluck  would 
work  a  miracle  any  day.  They  might  do  worse  than 
to  take  to  orange-culture ;  though  he  preferred  his 
profession  in  itself  considered :  he  thought,  too,  it 
would  be  a  pleasanter  life  for  her  ;  he  wanted,  above 
all,  to  make  it  a  little  easier  for  her  now.  Ostrander 
did  not  notice  how  scanty  were  his  wife's  answers 
to  all  this,  her  smile  was  so  rich,  her  surrendered 
hand  so  voluble. 

As  for  Avis,  she  heard  him  without  annoyance  or 
dispute.  She  would  have  been  uneasy  if  Philip  had 
undergone  a  transfiguration,  like  a  hero  in  a  novel, 
in  which  his  weaknesses  were  sublimated,  and  his 
faults  idealized  beyond  her  recognition.  She  would 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  427 

have  distrusted  a  grand  metamorphosis  as  in  itself 
but  another  form  of  a  capricious  and  curious  self- 
delusion. 

It  seemed  to  her  the  great  triumph  of  her  life 
that  she  could  love  her  husband  just  as  God  had 
made  him.  And  that  Philip,  being  Philip,  could 
come  leaning  in  this  pathetic  way  upon  her  love,  — 
the  sure,  strained  love  of  five  married  years,  — this 
seemed  to  her  just  then  more  a  prophecy  than  a 
fulfilment  of  hope.  After  all,  what  was  this  one 
world,  to  souls  which  had  been  joined  together  by 
any  tissues  too  firm  for  the  attrition  of  time  to  tear  ? 
At  best  a  root  beneath  a  forest  of  experience.  Per- 
haps (she  thought)  those  married  men  and  women 
were  better  fitted  than  they  knew  for  the  permanent 
character  of  a  spiritual  form  of  society,  who,  at  the 
end  of  one  life  passed  together,  could  intelligently 
desire  to  renew  the  relation  in  a  second. 

When  he  talked  of  herself  and  her  work,  her  re- 
serve deepened.  He  spoke  much  of  both.  It  was, — 

"Avis,  when  you  get  to  painting;  "  or,  "  Avis, 
one  thing  I  mean  to  make  sure  of,  that  you  shall  be 
hampered  no  longer  in  your  own  plans ;  "  or, 
"  Why  have  you  done  nothing  new  this  winter, 
Avis?  "  or,  "  Now  all  goes  well  with  us,  dear,  we 
shall  see  you  famous." 

She  said,  — 

"Yes,  Philip."  Why  argue  the  matter?  She 
knew  how  that  would  be.  And  she  could  not  have 
said  she  did  not  care.  She  did  not  cheat  her  clear 


428  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

nature  by  telling  herself  or  him  that  she  found  in 
her  married  lot  vicarious  atonement  for  what  she 
had  missed.  A  human  gift  is  a  rebellious  prisoner, 
and  she  was  made  human  before  she  was  made 
woman. 

But  she  thought  it  mattered  less  to  her  than  it 
did  once,  —  all  this  lost  and  unquelled  life.  They 
had  saved  the  life  of  life,  they  had  saved  their  wed- 
ded love  :  the  rest  could  be  borne. 

One  day  she  could  not  ride  with  him,  there-  being 
a  burden  of  home-letters  and  little  accumulating 
feminine  tasks,  which  she  performed  less  nervously 
alone.  It  was  the  morning,  too,  for  a  spelling-les- 
son that  she  gave  their-  waiter  in  the  boarding-house 
(a  handsome  mulatto  boy,  to  whom  both  had  taken 
a  fancy),  whenever  the  state  of  Jeff's  intellect  or 
dining-room  permitted.  They  compromised  (for  she 
did  not  h'ke  Philip  to  go  alone)  upon  the  company 
of  their  neighbor  Smith.  Smith  was  down  on  the 
wharf;  and  he  would  find  him,  if  she  wished,  and 
they  would  ride  a  little  towards  the  swamps,  and 
return  when  they  were  hungry.  He  held  her  hand, 
and  chatted  a  good  deal  about  it.  He  had  taken  a 
slight  cold  for  a  day  or  two  past,  and  clung  to  her, 
quickly  depressed,  with  more  than  usual  dependence. 
It  was,  "Avis,  don't  stay  long  down  stairs." 
"Coming  back  soon,  Avis?"  "Would  you  just 
as  lief  sit  here?  "  "I  can't  see  you,  there  by  the 
window." 

This  morning,  when  he  had  gone  as  far  as  the 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  429 

gate,  he  came  back.  She  was  standing  on  the 
veranda,  as  it  happened,  quite  alone,  in  her  light 
dress,  and  the  low,  dark  outline  of  her* hair:  he 
came  back,  and  kissed  her  again,  and  said  she  must 
not  miss  him.  She  watched  him  walking  down  the 
naiTow  road, — the  road  like  a  "river  of  sand." 
He  turned,  and  nodded  to  her :  the  wind  struck  his 
bright  hair.  He  looked  flashing  and  fresh  to  her, 
as  if  she  saw  him  for  the  first  time  in  her  life.  He 
drew  her  with  that  subtle  fascination  which  Nature 
takes  a  fitful  delight  in  bestowing  upon  some  crea- 
tures as  a  substitute  for  strength,  perhaps,  —  shall 
we  say  ?  —  as  an  index  of  undeveloped  strength. 
Avis  followed  him  with  a  girl's  blush  and  a  wife's 
eyes.  Her  heart  went  to  meet  that  Indian  summer 
of  married  life,  which,  after  the  rain,  settles  down 
upon  the  purple  air. 

It  was  towards  noon,  that,  having  put  her  morn- 
ing's work  well  behind  her,  she  went  down  stairs  to 
find  the  boy  Jeff.  On  the  landing  she  met  —  with  his 
baby  in  his  arms,  and  his  boy  at  his  coat-tails,  and 
his  wife  calling  to  him  to  come  back  and  shut  the 
door  —  the  patient  form  of  Mr.  Smith.  She  stopped 
to  say,— 

4 '  Did  you  not  meet  my  husband  this  morning  ?  ' ' 
with  an  unconscious  change  of  color. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  said  Mr.  Smith ;  "  and  I  wanted  to 
go  with  him  :  he  had  a  pretty  marsh-pony.  He's  a 
fine  rider,  your  husband.  But  you  see,  Mrs.  Smith 
has  had  a  bad  night.  She  says  it's  the  worst  she's 


430  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

had.  And  the  baby's  got  the  colic ;  and  the  girl  eat 
too  much  breakfast ;  and  the  boy  —  let  me  see,  what 
is  the  malter  with  the  boy  ?  Oh,  yes  !  the  boy  chopped 
off  the  end  of  his  finger  with  a  hatchet.  But  maybe, 
if  the  nurse  hadn't  had  the  sick-headache,  I  might 
have  brought  it  about,"  added  Mr.  Smith,  with  a 
pensive  and  powerful  effort  of  the  imagination. 

Mrs.  Ostrander  went  on,  and  gave  Jeff  his  lesson. 
Philip  would  be  in  to  dinner,  she  hoped,  since  he  had 
gone  alone  ;  or  he  might  have  easily  found  company 
among  the  sporting-men  about  the  hotel.  He  did  not 
come  home  to  dinner;  but  this  was  not  unusual. 
Often  they  had  ridden  till  late  in  the  afternoon,  re- 
turning with  the  breeze  which  set  in  from  the  river, 
he  saying,  as  they  jogged  along  in  the  happy  weather, 
"  How  glad  I  am  you  came  !  " 

She  settled  herself  restlessly  to  some  long-neglected 
sketches  :  it  was  difficult  to  remember  when  she  had 
passed  an  afternoon  alone  before;  she  sat  in  the 
strange  silence,  with  flushed  cheeks.  Mrs.  Smith, 
in  the  next  room,  had  brightened  a  little ;  and  her 
husband  could  be  heard  gallantly  telling  her  how 
well  she  looked.  The  people  began  to  collect  in  the 
parlor  and  on  the  verandas.  Jeff  came  up  to  ask 
if  Mr.  Ostrander 's  dinner  should  be  kept  hot  any 
longer,  his  main  argument  being,  that,  as  they  wanted 
the  oven  for  the  supper,  Mr.  Ostrander  must  have 
dined  with  a  gentleman.  The  shaded  room  began 
to  cool  about  her  ;  it  was  time  to  open  the  blinds  to 
the  breeze  from  the  bay ;  it  was  time  for  the  sensi- 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  431 

tive  shadow  of  the  jasmine  to  deepen  across  the  tea- 
rose-tree,  and  the  sharp  edges  of  the  orange-leaves 
to  grow  blunt  to  the  eye  that  was  strained  with 
peering  across  them  to  the  empty  road — it  was  time 
for  Philip  Ostrander  to  come  home. 

Steps  upon  the  sand ;  manly  steps  enough,  im- 
petuous and  ringing,  as  of  one  who  hurried  up  to 
say,  i '  Did  I  frighten  you  getting  back  so  late  ? ' ' 
—  The  jaunty  hotel  waiter  looks  up  as  he  goes  by  ;  the 
light  flares  on  the  big  seal-ring  he  wears  ;  he  has  a 
red  sea-bean  upon  his  watch-guard ;  he  lifts  his  hat 
to  the  quadroon  cook,  who  is  opening  oysters  in  the 
orange-grove  below. 

Steps  upon  the  sand.  He  will  be  sure  to  watch 
the  windows  through  the  opening  in  the  clump  of  fig- 
trees.  By  leaning  out  across  the  ledge  a  trifle,  — • 
not  too  far,  because  the  guava  bough  sweeps  up,  — • 
one  can  see  him  turning.  How  poetic  is  this  Southern 
light  upon  long  Saxon  hair !  and  in  a  man,  a  smile 
is  rare,  like  this  for  which  a  woman  waits,  with  color 
spent,  and  breath  in  leash,  and  head  bent  low  to 
listen,  her  cheek  upon  her  two  hands  stretched  palm 
to  palm.  —  Why  will  the  tourists  go  to  walk  upon  this 
street?  It  is  the  hour  for  the  veranda  and  the 
shore,  the  forest  and  the  yacht.  Impossible  to 
understand  why  anybody  should  want  to  wade  across 
this  sand.  She  leans  upon  his  arm  with  a  pretty 
color,  —  a  superficial  thing,  over-dressed  and  sim- 
pering. How  can  a  woman  love  a  man  who  carries 
his  cane  like  that  ?  His  gloves  are  too  light.  There 


432  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

is  a  blue  heron's  wing  upon  her  bonnet.  They  whis- 
per together.  They  laugh  and  nod.  The  orange- 
tree  casts  a  long  shadow  over  the  fence,  through 
which  they  pass,  leaning  and  still.  They  do  not  note 
the  length  of  the  shadow.  They  do  not  care  if  it 
grows  late. 

Steps  upon  the  sand.  It  yields  slowly  to  a  weary 
foot,  overtasked  perhaps,  in  wandering  about  the 
marshes,  or  a  trifle  lamed  upon  these  awkward  stir- 
rups ;  he  will  limp  up  to  the  gate  ;  it  will  be  a  min- 
ute's work  to  bound  from  the  window,  to  clear  the 
stairs,  the  veranda,  the  yard,  to  stand  panting  and 
strong ;  he  will  lean  upon  her  shoulder  as  he  did  in 
the  meadow  once  at  home  on  a  September  noon  ;  he 
will  stoop  and  say,  "  Was  I  gone  too  long?  "  — The 
old  woman  was  a  slave.  She  cringes  as  she  walks. 
Her  head  is  bent  well-nigh  at  right  angles  from  her 
shoulders.  Her  turban  is  made  of  the  MacGregor 
plaid.  Her  fingers  are  yellow ;  the  third  knuckle 
on  the  left  hand  is  mutilated.  It  is  a  sickly  sight. 
The  child  with  her  is  an  octoroon.  She  has  blue 
eyes,  and  ties  her  hair  with  a  lavender  ribbon.  The 
child  says  it  is  supper-time.  One  must  be  very 
strong  and  happy  to  watch  these  people. 

Steps  upon  the  sand.  Ah,  there !  How  dull  is 
fear  !  what  a  dotard  is  anxiety !  Of  course  he  would 
ride  the  pony  home.  They  are  short  clean  steps, 
very  clear  and  pleasant  for  a  marsh-tackey's  foot. 
It  is  not  wise  to  look  any  longer  through  the  rift  be- 
tween the  fig-tree  and  the  guava.  To  wait  a  little 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  433 

for  a  relief  from  over-pressure  were  the  gentler  and 
the  gladder  way.  The  pony  will  come  shying  to  the 
gate,  a  little  obstinate,  wanting  to  get  to  the  stable, 
bruising  the  rider's  leaping  foot  gently  against  the 
fence.  She  will  wait  and  meet  him  at  the  landing  — 
there  are  so  many  people  down  below.  As  he 
stoops,  he  will  laugh  a  little,  touching  her  beneath 
the  chin.  Her  lips,  already  stirring,  say,  "  You 
shall  never  go  alone  again." 

The  sportsman  rides  well.  The  young  fellow  is 
fitted  with  white  gloves.  He  is  fresh  from  a  hunt- 
ing-trip up  the  Oclawaha  or  the  lakes.  He  is  in  a 
hurry  for  a  civilized  supper.  His  horse  is  white  too, 
and  he  rides  fast.  There  is  a  shower  behind  them. 
Horse  and  rider  bound  before  it.  Children,  un- 
seen behind  the  guava-trees,  cry  that  it  is  thunder- 
ing. The  air  blackens  down  upon  the  river ;  the 
little  yachts  take  in  their  sails ;  the  surf  stretches 
out  its  arms  ;  the  wind  gets  him  to  his  solemn  feet ; 
the  orange-blossoms  break  and  blow  in,  beating 
about  the  darkening  room.  In  the  confusion  the 
supper-bell  rings  shrilly,  and  the  people  on  the 
veranda  scatter,  laughing,  from  the  rain. 

"  Better  let  her  go,"  said  Mr.  Smith. 

"  You  couldn't  petrify  her  to  stay  at  home,  sar," 
said  Jeff.  Jeff  had  learned  that  word  in  the  spell- 
ing-lesson that  morning :  he  had  not  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  use  it  in  good  society  before.  Jeff  was 
very  fond  of  Mrs.  Ostrander.  He  felt  that  it  would 


434  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

be  a  comfort  to  her,  under  these  anxious  circum- 
stances, that  he  should  acquaint  the  other  boarders 
with  some  evidence  of  his  proficiency  under  her  edu- 
cational attentions.  For  similar  reasons  he  stopped, 
and  said  distinctly,  — 

"Mis'  Ostrander,  I  don't  wish  to  be  personal; 
but  have  you  got  a  postage-stamp?  " 

By  that  time  all  the  boarders  were  upon  the  veran- 
da to  see  them  start.  Jeff  felt  a  little  jealous  of 
Mr.  Smith.  One  driver  —  at  least  a  driver  who 
could  spell  petrify  —  was  enough  for  any  lady ;  and 
that  they  should  meet  Mr.  Ostrander  directty,  every 
boarder  in  the  house  was  well  agreed.  It  was  agreed, 
however,  that  Mrs.  Ostrander  would  feel  relieved  to 
start  and  find  herself  well  upon  the  way  towards  her 
husband,  who  was  later  than  an  invalid  had  better 
be  upon  a  stormy  night. 

It  was  still  raining  lightly  ;  but  the  restless  clouds 
gave  promise  of  a  moon,  whenever  they  should  yield 
the  wild  field  to  which  Avis  uplifted  her  young  face. 
The  scant  lamps  of  the  town  dwindled,  nodding  like 
old  acquaintances  to  the  passer ;  knots  of  brightly- 
dressed  tourists  flashed  by ;  the  faces  of  the  great 
hotels  and  little  shops  turned  their  blazing  brows 
away. 

Avis  was  perfectly  familiar  with  her  husband's 
usual  haunts,  and  she  directed  her  course  at  once 
towards  the  heart  of  the  swamp.  She  sat  quite  still : 
the  two  men  talked  in  low  tones,  as  if  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  sick  person.  Once  Jeff  tried  to  draw  her 
into  conversation.  He  said,  — 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  435 

"Mis'  Ostrander,  what  I  want  to  know  is,  how 
you  done  go  spell  Aggymemnon."  Jeff  thought 
this  would  be  a  comfort  to  her :  he  prided  himself 
upon  the  delicacy  of  his  comprehension  of  Mrs.  Os- 
trander. He  did  not  know  a  boy  in  the  hotels  who 
had  so  handsome  a  lady ;  and  he  knew  a  good  many 
boys  who  had  eight  at  a  table  the  winter  through. 
In  his  heart  Jeff  was  much  out  of  patience  with  Mr. 
Ostrander ;  he  expected  to  find  that  he  had  taken  too 
much;  that  and  consumption  were  the  only  things 
which  ever  happened  to  Northern  gentlemen  in  Pi- 
latka. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  suggested  Mr.  Smith,  hesitat- 
ing, "  that  I  had  better  first  take  out  the  horse  and 
reconnoitre  a  little  ?  Jeff  will  stay  and  take  care  of 
you." 

Avis  turned  her  face  towards  him  in  the  faint, 
perturbed  light :  she  did  not  speak. 

"  Drive  on,  Jeff,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  with  a  sigh. 

It  was  now  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock.  The 
moon,  as  they  entered  the  nave  of  the  forest,  came 
climbing  into  sight  uncertainly,  like  a  woman  trip- 
ping on  her  robe.  The  beaten  clouds  sank  towards 
the  river,  which  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  see. 
Faintly  as  a  spent  breath,  as  they  rode  in  between 
the  pines,  Avis  fancied  that  she  heard  the  invisible 
waves  upon  the  invisible  shore. 

It  seemed  at  first  supernaturally  dark  within  the 
woods.  Optical  illusions  flared  for  a  few  moments 
before  her  eyes ;  she  saw  words  stamp  themselves 


436  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

and  melt  upon  the  air,  and  when  she  would  read 
them,  they  were  the  words  which  Dante  saw  upon 
the  lips  of  hell.  This  excitement  subsided  as  soon 
as  she  had  accustomed  her  eyes  to  the  shadow. 
She  had  been  there  once  before — with  Philip — upon 
a  brighter  night ;  but  they  had  not  ventured  far : 
he  feared  the  malaria  from  the  swamps.  Her  cour- 
age grew  more  rational  as  the  great  beauty  of  the 
wilderness  closed  in  about  them.  The  moon  was 
now  clear,  and  the  light  leaned  in,  sweet  and  sane, 
upon  the  gently  resistant  shadow. 

As  they  advanced,  sickening  odors  stole  up ; 
beyond  the  patrol  of  cedars  the  swamp  lay  skulking. 
It  would  soon  be  necessary  to  conduct  their  search 
on  foot.  As  they  stood  calling,  the  mocking-birds 
began  to  answer  them. 

Jeff  wished  he  could  see  her  face.  He  came  up, 
and  touched  her  on  the  sleeve.  He  felt  that  Mr. 
Smith  could  not  be  expected  to  understand  the 
necessities  of  the  occasion.  Mr.  Smith  had  not  put 
the  chair  up  to  the  table  three  times  a  day  for  those 
two.  The  mulatto's  yellow  jaws  began  to  work. 

"  Oh,  Mis'  Ostrander,  I  got  him  now  !  I  done  got 
him  on  the  way  before  we  tie  the  horse.  I  got  Aga- 
memnon right  easy  in  my  mind  at  last.  H-a-g,  Ag, 

g-y»gy»  Aggy"  — 

But  Agamemnon  was  too  much  for  poor  Jeff,  and 
choked  him  mercilessly  in  the  swallowing.  Jeff 
shrunk  back.  He  thought  she  would  have  been  so 
pleased.  He  might  as  well  let  Mr.  Smith  comfort 
her  now. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  437 

But  Mr.  Smith  feU  back  a  little  too.  Mrs.  Os- 
trander  gently  pushed  him  by,  and  took  the  lead  in 
silence,  beating  down  the  Spanish  bayonet  which 
tore  her  feet.  In  the  moonlit  opening  the  purple 
poison  from  the  swamp  had  a  clean  color,  like  blown 
snow.  Her  slight  figure  seemed  to  wrestle  with  the 
dumb,  unwilling  darkness  as  she  bent  into  it. 

Dawn  comes  with  the  reverent  and  delicate  touch 
of  a  lover  to  the  Florida  waste.  That  night  his  arm 
stole  with  what  seemed  especial  gentleness  about 
her  heart.  It  had  been  such  a  peaceful  and  wo- 
manly night !  There  had  been  no  wind  or  rain,  no 
blindness,  and  no  horror.  It  was  quite  warm  too : 
even  a  sick  man  might  breathe  the  air  in  safety. 
Avis  had  not  tottered  for  an  instant  in  her  resolute 
hope.  She  should  find  him.  God  was  merciful. 

As  the  moon  dipped,  a  strange  shrill  bird  awoke 
and  chirped,  and  slept  again.  Gliding  creatures 
began  to  stir,  and  skulk  away,  like  evil  thoughts 
before  clean  eyes,  or  terror  before  joy.  The  lamp- 
black of  the  distant  shadows  leaned  to  purple ;  the 
nearer  undergrowth  grew  gray.  Looking  to  the 
sky,  one  saw  that  it  changed  color  like  a  cheek. 
Suddenly  then,  the  tops  of  the  pines  yielded,  and 
each  green  needle  fired.  The  fine  outline  of  the  ce- 
dars revealed  itself  sinuously,  like  Etruscan  screens 
of  old  gold  wire.  The  loath  moss  stirred,  and 
showed  bluish  white.  The  wild  oranges  seemed  to 
tremble,  like  conscious  creatures  to  whom  the  sun 


438  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

was  plighted  first.  The  rose-curlews  moved,  tall, 
slender,  and  haughty:  they  looked  less  like  birds 
than  breathing  roses.  Avis,  looking  up,  saw  one 
rise,  glad  as  a  departing  soul,  and  hover,  burning  to 
be  gone,  upon  the  air.  Below  him  the  light  stole 
but  slowly  to  the  level  where  a  human  face  might  lie 
expectant  of  it. 

She  pushed  her  way  into  the  thicket,  spreading 
her  hands  out,  it  was  still  so  dark  there.  As  she 
did  so,  she  was  conscious  of  being  confronted  by  a 
close  pair  of  gentle,  puzzled  eyes.  She  stopped 
short,  and  flung  her  hands  before  her  face. 

"  Jeff!  "  she  cried,  "  it  is  the  marsh-pony !  " 

The  light  was  now  deepening  fast,  and  the  two 
men  instinctively  and  authoritatively  drew  the  woman 
back. 

From  the  moment  of  finding  the  horse,  she  had 
begun  to  tremble,  and  when  they  spoke  to  her  she 
obeyed. 

As  they  beat  about  the  opening,  Jeff  looked  back 
over  his  shoulder.  The  mists  of  the  damp  place 
were  turned  red  and  rich,  and  through  them  he  saw 
that  she  had  fallen  on  her  knees.  She  looked  like 
one  bathed  in  a  scarlet  flood. 

Then  the  live-oak  bough  swept  in  between  them, 
and  Jeff,  for  he  could  not  see,  went  stumbling  on.  ... 
The  white  man  and  the  mulatto  looked  at  each  other. 

"  Sir,"  said  Jeff,  lifting  his  head  after  a  silence, 
"  I've  set  the  chair  for  'em  for  most  two  months ; 
and  there  was  the  writin'  and  the  spellin'  as  she  was 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  439 

so  good.  She  would  suspect  me  to  be  the  man  of  us 
two  to  tell  her.  It  ain't  your  fault,  sir,  that  you 
can't  be  looked  to  understand  her  feelin',  sir,  so  well." 

She  had  risen  from  her  knees  when  he  met  her. 
She  made  no  sound,  but  staggered :  she  still  had  her 
hands  before  her  eyes.  Jeff  came  up  ;  he  touched 
her,  cringing,  on  the  sleeve. 

"  O  Mis'  Ostrander  dear !  he  didn't  take  too 
much  —  he  only  took  a  bleeding.  And  he  says  we 
was  to  break  it  to  you  easy,  and  that  he's  glad  to 
see  you,  ma'am,  and  has  been  done  expectin'  you, 
and  that  you're  not  to  mind  —  and  0  Mis'  Ostran- 
der !  now  I  think  if  you  was  to  stop  a  minute  — just 
easy  where  you  stand  —  and  spell  a  little  —  it  would 
clar  your  mind  out.  He  don't  look  so  bad  as  some 
doos  —  but  if  you  was  just  to  stop  —  before  3~ou  sees 
him — it's  only  jest  behind  the  live-oak  yonder — Mis' 
Ostrander  dear"  — 


The  daybreak  sought  them  out  gently.  In  the 
pathless  forest  whose  solemn  purpose  no  man  knew, 
they  clung  to  one  another,  and  thanked  God.  He 
had  been  merciful.  Care  and  change  had  done  their 
worst.  Beaten  life  had  given  challenge  to  their  love. 
They  could  bear  the  incident  of  death.  In  that  hour 
they  were  less  grieved  because  they  must  be  parted, 
than  blessed  because  they  loved  each  other. 

She  had  found  him  lying  quite  peacefully,  expect- 
ing her. 


440  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

As  she  knelt,  gathering  his  head  upon  her  breast, 
the  sun  arose  upon  the  wilderness.  In  the  splendor 
he  looked  young  to  her,  and  a  future  in  his  face 
returned  her  gaze.  He  felt  her  arm  and  her  warm 
breath,  and  smiled  boyishly.  "It  is  hard  to  believe 
—  that  a  man  can  die  —  here,"  he  said.  He  turned 
his  cheek,  and  hers  touched  it.  He  asked  her  not 
to  move. 

He  had  not  suffered  much,  he  said,  nor  long. 
And  he  felt  sure  she  would  come  ;  he  had  not  doubted 
for  a  moment — it  was  a  pretty  long  night ;  but  he 
knew  she  was  not  far.  Once  he  thought  he  heard 
her.  And  the  pony  wandered  off — it  was  more 
lonely  after  the  pony  went.  But  she  must  not  mind. 
It  had  been  warm  and  bright ;  and  it  had  not  been 
hard.  Nothing  had  been  hard  —  but  the  chance — if 
she  had  been  too  late,  that  would  have  been  pretty 
hard.  But  he  knew  that  she  would  come. 

Then  he  asked  her  to  lift  him  a  little  more  upon 
her  arm,  and  if  he  tired  her  too  much.  After  that 
he  seemed  to  sleep  lightly :  he  upheld  his  face  as  if 
he  drank  her  abundant  breath.  When  he  awoke,  he 
said,  — 

"  Avis,  do  you  remember  —  once  —  how  you  said 
that  you  would  like  to  die  ?  ' ' 

"  Hush,  my  darling  !  —  yes." 

"  Love,  if  I  ask  it,  will  you  kiss  my  breath  away? 
When  I  speak  again,  will  you  kiss  me  on  the  lips?  " 

"  Oh,  my  darling !  oh,  my  darling !     Yes." 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  441 

"Aviat" 

When  she  lifted  her  face,  the  rose-curlew  hung 
overhead,  palpitating  with  joy. 

The  two  men  had  long  since  withdrawn  into  the 
forest. 


442  THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS. 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

"  A  dream  of  man  and  woman, 
Diviner  still,  but  human; 
Solving  the  riddle  old, 
Shaping  the  age  of  gold."  —  WHITTIEB. 

UPON  the  shores  of  the  river  as  she  went  home, 
the  young  fine  fronds  were  thrusting  aside  the 
unfaded  leaves.  The  forest  stood  in  a  pale  and 
tender  fog  of  green,  as  if  an  unseen  artist  had 
blurred  it  with  a  blender,  perhaps  to  deceive  an 
over-wary  eye  as  to  his  real  intent  in  touching  it  at 
all.  There  was  something  at  once  unutterably  deli- 
cate and  urgent  in  the  advance  of  the  deathless 
spring  upon  the  deathless  summer.  The  eye  leaned 
upon  it  with  the  relief  which  it  finds  in  sunset,  sun- 
rise, zenith,  fire,  or  sea ;  in  those  things  only  which 
bring  the  thought  face  to  face  with  what  is  unfath- 
omable. The  heart  bowed  before  it,  quickened  to 
ask,  "  Where  shall  I  find  eternity  without  resurrec- 
tion?" 

She  travelled  alone,  tearless  and  excited.  She 
felt  strong  and  strained.  As  yet  she  was  filled  less 
with  a  sense  of  loss  than  love.  Philip  seemed  quite 
near,  —  nearer  than  when  it  had  been  possible  to  be 
conscious  of  «any  imperfection  in  himself  or  in  their 
union.  Only  his  ideal  visited  her  heart.  She  was 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  443 

not  without  a  strange,  exultant  sense  that  now  she 
never  could  see  a  weakness  or  a  flaw  in  him  again. 
Life  might  try  her  cruelest,  she  could  not  fret  them 
now.  She  thought  of  him  with  something  of  the 
proud  and  peculiar  triumph  of  the  widowed  girl, 
'who  kneels  to  the  vision  of  the  man  whose  wife  she 
never  was,  to  learn  to  reverence  him  by  one  blind 
thrill  the  less. 

Unheard,  he  seemed  to  her  tense  mood  to  speak 
to  her  as  she  rode  solitary ;  and  his  voice  had  the 
tone  of  the  wooing  and  the  bridal  time.  Unseen  to 
her  soul's  eyes,  he  journeyed  with  her ;  and  his  face 
had  the  look  of  its  first  youth  and  the  beauty  of  its 
noblest  hour.  Their  relation  seemed  to  her  to  run 
on  quite  uninterrupted.  He  leaned  over  her  shoul- 
der to  read  their  undivided  life.  He  had  but  turned 
a  leaf  before  her  in  the  story  without  an  end. 

Aunt  Chloe  was  sitting  in  the  twilight  with  the 
little  girl  asleep  across  her  generous  arms.  The 
geraniums  in  the  windows  were  all  pink  that  year. 
Aunt  Chloe  watched  them  while  she  hushed  the 
child. 

The  professor  walked  rather  feebly  up  and  down 
the  silent  study.  He  had  been  saying  to  his  sister 
that  he  was  growing  old,  he  thought,  and  that  the 
house  seemed  lonely.  He  stopped  to  right  the 
picture  of  Sir  William,  whose  fresh  gray  cord  had 
twisted  on  its  polished  hook,  and  wondered  who  had 
taken  Locke's  Understanding  from  the  left  elbow  of 


444  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

the  mahogany  sofa,  and  if  Professor  Brown  would 
call  again  to  see  about  that  pet  chemist  of  his  who 
was  marked  so  low  on  intuition,  and  how  long  it 
was  since  they  had  heard  from  Avis,  and  what  it 
meant  that  we  were  having  such  a  merciful  spring, 
and  said  how  green  the  grass  was,  even  now,  upon 
the  yard.  And  then  aunt  Chloe  heard  the  gate 
click ;  and,  when  they  both  looked  out  across  the 
pink  geraniums,  Avis,  in  her  widow's  dress,  alone, 
was  walking  up  between  the  blades  of  grass. 

Aunt  Chloe  went  out  and  led  her  in,  asking  no 
questions,  and  saying  no  word.  She  led  her  into 
the  study,  to  her  father,  and  put  her  baby  into  her 
arms,  and  went  out  and  shut  the  door.  And  then 
Avis  drew  in  her  breath,  and  shook  suddenly,  and 
so  began  to  cry. 

No  solitude  is  so  solitary  as  that  of  inharmonious 
companionship  ;  and,  beside  certain  other  phases  of 
her  life,  her  present  one  seemed  at  first  to  Avis  to 
lack  the  essential  qualities  of  loneliness. 

It  was  with  that  vivid  belief  (which  has  the  char- 
acter of  consciousness  to  imaginative  minds)  in 
Philip's  watchful  and  intelligent  sympathy,  that  she 
directed  her  energies  to  the  object  which  her  mar- 
riage and  its  consequences  had  interrupted. 

She  opened  the  garden-studio  while  the  apples 
budded,  and  there  she  staid  patiently  for  a  year. 
They  questioned  her  little  or  none  ;  and  she  worked 
in  an  absolute  taciturnity,  not  characteristic  of  her 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  445 

sweet  and  kindly  temper,  which  was  quick  to  sac- 
rifice an  instinct  of  reticence  to  one  of  considera- 
tion for  the  feelings  of  a  friend.  Aunt  Chloe  knew 
there  was  a  portrait  of  little  Jack  Rose,  and  suspect- 
ed a  picture  for  the  exhibition,  and  tried  to  remem- 
ber that  it  showed  a  lack  of  acquaintance  with  life 
to  be  hurt  by  the  conduct  of  the  afflicted. 

When  the  year  was  out,  Avis  one  day  locked  the 
studio,  took  her  little  girl,  and  went  to  find  her  father. 
She  crossed  her  hands,  and  stood  before  him,  much 
in  the  attitude  in  which  she  stood  on  that  June  morn- 
ing when  she  read  ''Aurora  Leigh."  Only  now  be- 
tween her  folded  palms  she  held  the  fingers  of  the 
child.  She  said,  — 

"Next  week,  father,  I  shall  go  into  the  Art 
School,  and  teach,  and  I  think  I  can  get  a  private 
class  besides.'* 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  asked  the  professor  after  a  sad 
silence,  "  that  your  mother  would  think  this  to  be 
best,  my  dear?" 

More  largely,  perhaps,  than  a  smaller  man,  the 
professor's  s}Tnpathy  jdelded  what  his  intellect 
grudged.  He  felt  that  he  had  made  one  of  the  con- 
cessions of  his  life  in  intimating  to  his  daughter 
her  mother's  possible  approval  of  her  personal  ambi- 
tions, or  regret  at  their  obstruction  j-  since,  of  course, 
when  his  daughter  had  married,  it  was  to  be  assumed 
that  she  yielded  the  tastes  and  occupations  of  her 
maidenhood,  like  other  women  —  like  her  mother  be- 
fore her.  But  the  professor  could  not  argue  with 


446  THE  STOEY  OF  AVIS. 

the  eccentricities  of  an  afflicted  child.  His  daugh- 
ter's frosted  future  chilled  Mm  like  some  novel  defect 
in  the  laws  of  nature ;  as  if  the  sun  should  elect 
upon  whose  roof  it  should  shine,  or  the  rain  pass  him 
by  to  visit  his  neighbor's  field. 

.  "  It  is  of  no  use,"  said  Avis  wearily,  "  my  pictures 
come  back  upon  my  hands.  Nobody  wants  them  — 
now.  They  tell  me  that  my  style  is  gone.  Goupil 
says  I  work  as  if  I  had  a  rheumatic  hand — as  if 
my  fingers  were  stiff.  It  is  true  my  hand  has  been  a 
little  clumsy  since  —  Van  —  But  the  stiffness  runs 
deeper  than  the  fingers,  father.  Never  mind  ;  don't 
mind.  We've  given  it  up — Wait  and  I ;  haven't 
we,  Wait?" 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  said  the  little  girl  dis- 
tinctly. Avis' s  daughter  was  a  logical  little  body, 
clear-headed,  speaking  only  when  she  had  something 
to  say.  Wait  did  not  understand  what  it  was  that 
had  been  given  ;  did  not  see  that  any  thing  had  been 
given  to  anybody  (it  certainly  was  not  grandpa's 
hour  for  the  cough-lozenge),  and  preferred  not  to 
allow  herself  to  be  compromised  on  any  matter  on 
which  she  was  not  perfectly  clear. 

Her  mother  stood  looking  blindly  down.  Wait 
pulled  at  her  dress  unnoticed. 

"  Your  little  daughter  speaks,"  said  the  professor. 
Wait  stood  patiently — a  sturdy  lassie,  with  straight- 
forward e}^es  and  a  healthy  temper  of  her  own — aware 
that  she  was  not  of  much  importance  to  her  mother 
just  then,  but  perfectly  able  to  bide  her  time.  Avis 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  447 

continued  to  look  down  with  her  ej'elids  half  closed  ; 
it  did  not  seem  as  if  she  saw  her.  Something  as 
elemental  in  Philip  Ostrander's  wife  as  the  love  of 
their  child,  required  her  attention  at  that  moment. 
She  wondered  how  it  would  have  been  if  she  had 
cared  for  him  in  some  other  way,  —  like  some  other 
women  ;  if  she  had  been  made  of  tougher  tissue  ;  if 
her  feeling  for  that  one  man,  her  husband,  had  not 
eaten  into  and  eaten  out  the  core  of  her  life,  left 
her  a  riddled,  withered  thing,  spent  and  rent, 
wasted  by  the  autocracy  of  a  love  as  imperious  as 
her  own  nature,  and  as  deathless  as  her  own  soul. 
But  she  would  do  it  all  over  again,  —  all,  all !  She 
would  never  love  him  by  one  throe  the  less.  Avis 
stretched  out  her  arms  into  the  empt}^  air.  She  did 
not  know  how  to  express  distinctly,  even  to  her 
own  consciousness,  her  conviction  that  she  might 
have  painted  better  pictures  —  not  worse  —  for  lov- 
ing Philip  and  the  children  ;  that  this  was  what  God 
meant  for  her,  for  all  of  them,  once,  long  ago.  She 
had  not  done  it.  It  was  too  late  now.  And  Wait 
was  watching  her  with  resolute,  critical  eyes,  tug- 
ging at  her  hands  now,  with  lip  put  up  ;  would  have 
cried,  if  she  had  been  a  bab}r  like  Ave  Rose. 

Avis  turned  with  a  supple  motion,  and  snatched 
the  little  girl. 

" 1  have  my  child  !  "  she  cried. 

She  thought  of  this  more  often  after  that :  ah1  was 
not  over,  the  child  had  her  life  to  live.  The  pa- 
rental resurrection  came  to  Avis,  as  other  forms  of 


448  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

tenderness  had  done,  slowly,  but  with  passionate 
intelligence:  she  seemed  to  herself  to  be  the  first 
woman  in  the  world  who  had  said,  — 

"  My  child  shall  not  repeat  my  blunders  ;  "  or,  — 

"  What  does  it  all  matter,  if  my  child  may  be 
spared  my  sorrows  ?  ' ' 

Wait  developed  with  the  rapidity  of  most  solitary 
children,  quite  in  her  own  fashion. 

When  she  was  four  years  old,  her  mother  came  to 
aunt  Chloe  one  day,  rigid  with  dismay. 

Aunt  Chloe  sprang,  dropping  the  cotton-flannel 
for  the  beneficiaries.  "  Is  it  her  fingers?  or  her 
throat?  Oh  !  did  I  leave  the  oxalic  acid  out?  " 

"I  asked  her  if  her  doll  was  asleep,"  gasped 
Avis,  "  and  she  said,  «  Hush,  mamma!  It  has  been 
the  object  of  my  life  that  she  should  not  know  she  was 
a  doll." 

"Her  forehead  is  too  full,"  said  the  doctor;  ex- 
actly as  if  he  had  not  said  it  to  every  other  mother 
on  his  list  that  morning.  "  Keep  her  out  of  school 
till  you  are  convinced  she  is  a  dunce.  Turn  her  out 
of  doors  with  no  more  restriction  than  a  cricket." 
One  mother  on  the  list  at  least  obeyed  him,  and 
one  elected  lassie  was  let  loose  upon  the  wide  Har- 
mouth  fields  and  shore.  Before  she  could  read  a 
line,  Avis's  daughter  was  a  splendid  little  animal. 

At  this  point  the  mother's  heart  withdrew,  and 
took  counsel  of  itself. 

It  must  be  clearly  remembered  that  Avis  had  been 
reared  in  social  and  intellectual  conditions  whose 


THE  STOKY  OF  AVIS.  449 

tendency  is  strictly  to  the  depression  of  novelty  in 
conduct  or  opinion.  There  are  always  phases  of 
progress  vital  enough,  perhaps,  to  their  little  coteries 
of  prophets  or  disciples,  competent,  even,  (Heaven 
forbid  that  one  be  dull  of  imagination  about  any 
remote  forms  of  humanity  !)  to  their  own  organisms, 
circulation,  heart-throbs,  possibly,  which  the  life  of 
a  university  town  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  enter 
upon  its  curriculum  of  interests.  Religion,  sex,  race, 
class,  or  whatever,  looks  for  no  recognition  of  its 
discrowned  state  from  the  centres  of  scholastic  cul- 
ture. The  moral  evolution  comes  slowly  to  the 
intellectual  specialist,  as  faith  to  the  physicist,  or 
doubt  to  the  poet,  or  geometry  to  the  artist.  Phases 
of  thought  quite  familiar  to  most  thoughtful  people 
to-day,  forms  of  advance  pressing  silently  against 
thoughtful  and  thoughtless,  now  alike,  Avis  had 
been  trained  to  regard  with  the  calm  curiosity  with 
which  a  free-thinker  tries  to  regard  a  Christian,  —  a 
being,  in  the  nature  of  things,  of  inferior  culture, 
because  cherishing  a  superstition  which  is,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  barbaric. 

As  free  from  the  compression  of  any  agitating  in- 
fluence or  upheaval  as  if  she  and  Wait  had  been 
sitting  sheltered  on  a  summer-day  in  a  convent- 
garden,  side  by  side  among  the  sultry  flowers,  while 
the  music  from  the  altar  sounded  on,  and  the  sweet 
veiled  women  passed  with  holy  feet,  Avis,  with  her 
earnest  eyes,  and  tender  mouth,  and  tired  brows, 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  the  future  of  her 
child. 


450  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS; 

She  found  herself  in  the  sensitive  state  of  one 
who  has  made  a  gradual  but  radical  change  of  cli- 
mate. Horizons  with  which  her  own  youth  was 
unacquainted,  beckoned  before  her  ;  the  hills  looked 
at  her  with  a  foreign  face ;  the  wind  told  her  that 
which  she  had  not  heard  ;  in  the  air  strange  melodies 
rang  out;  uninterpreted  colors  gathered  about  the 
rising  of  the  sun:  her  own  chastised  aspiration 
looked  humbly  out  upon  the  day  whose  story  she 
should  never  read. 

We  have  been  told  that  it  takes  three  generations 
to  make  a  gentleman :  we  may  believe  that  it  will 
take  as  much,  or  more,  to  make  A  WOMAN.  A  being 
of  radiant  physique  ;  the  heiress  of  ancestral  health 
on  the  maternal  side ;  a  creature  forever  more  of 
nerve  than  of  muscle,  and  therefore  trained  to  the 
energy  of  the  muscle  and  the  repose  of  the  nerve ; 
physically  educated  by  mothers  of  her  own  fibre  and 
by  physicians  of  her  own  sex,  —  such  a  woman 
alone  is  fitted  to  acquire  the  drilled  brain,  the  calmed 
imagination,  and  sustained  aim,  which  constitute 
intellectual  command. 

A  creature  capable  of  this  command,  in  whom 
emotion  intensifies  reflection,  and  passion  strength- 
ens purposes,  and  self-poise  is  substituted  for  self- 
extravagance, —  such  a  creature  only  is  competent 
to  the  terrible  task  of  adjusting  the  sacred  individ- 
uality of  her  life  to  her  supreme  capacity  of  love 
and  the  supreme  burden  and  perils  which  it  imposes 
upon  her. 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  451 

A  man  in  whom  the  sources  of  feeling  are  as  deep 
as  they  are  delicate,  as  perennial  as  they  are  pure ; 
whose  affection  becomes  a  burning  ambition  not  to 
be  outvied  by  hers,  whose  daily  soul  is  large  enough 
to  guard  her,  even  though  it  were  at  the  cost  of 
sharing  it,  from  the  tyranny  of  small  corrosive  care 
which  gnaws  and  gangrenes  hers,  '—  such  a  man 
alone  can  either  comprehend  or  apprehend  the  love 
of  such  a  woman. 

No  man  conceives  what  a  woman  will  do  or  dare 
for  him,  until  he  has  surprised  her  nature  by  the 
largest  abnegation  of  which  his  own  is  capable. 
Let  him  but  venture  the  experiment,  if  he  will  find 
himself  vanquished  by  her  in  generosity  to  the  end 
of  the  sweet  warfare.  Then  first  he  knows  what  he 
has  won  ;  for  then  onty  does  she  suffer  him  to  know. 
It  is  not  till  then,  that  reverence  and  surrender  radi- 
cally begin  their  life  in  her.  Nay,  then,  he  is  the 
man,  he  only  among  men,  who  understands  what  a 
woman's  tenderness  is.  With  her,  he  is  a  crowned 
creature ;  but  with  him  she  is  a  free  one. 

Avis  was  a  careworn  woman ;  and,  like  most  peo- 
ple with  whom  life  has  dealt  intensely  and  intro- 
spectively,  the  pressure  of  the  advancing  upon  the 
retreating  generation  touched  her  personality  more 
than  her  philanthropy  or  philosophy.  Were  there 
subtle  readings  of  the  eternal  riddle  astir  upon  the 
desert  ?  Had  the  stone  lips  of  the  sphinx  begun  to 
mutter?  God  knew;  and  the  desert  knew  —  and 
the  dumb  mouth. 


452  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

For  her,  she  had  her  child.  It  would  be  easier 
for  her  daughter  to  be  alive,  and  be  a  woman,  than 
it  had  been  for  her :  so  much  as  this,  she  understood ; 
more  than  this  she  felt  herself  too  spent  to  question. 
She  folded  her  arms  about  the  little  girl,  and  laid 
her  cheek  upon  her  hair,  and  closed  her  eyes.  She 
had  the  child,  she  had  the  child  ! 

Once,  sitting  with  Coy  in  the  parsonage-parlor, 
the  two  women  fell  to  talking  of  matters  of  which 
they  did  not  often  speak.  Coy  had  the  immense 
power  of  incommunicativeness  sometimes  found  in 
simple  and  even  impulsive  women  in  whom  a  kind 
heart  supph'es  the  place  of  a  deep  imagination.  For 
years  now,  with  Avis,  Coy's  instinct  had  kept  her 
close  to  the  surface  of  the  immediate.  She  felt  it  to 
be  natural,  that  there  was  always  something  not  to 
be  talked  about  in  Avis's  life :  it  was  the  way  with 
women  like  Avis,  to  whom  things  happened.  Noth- 
ing had  ever  happened  to  Coy  —  except  John  and 
the  children. 

Coy  had  three  children :  they  were  not  kept  out 
of  the  parsonage-parlor  any  more  than  the  sun  or 
the  air.  Coy's  children  did  not  tire  her :  she  looked 
radiantly  at  Avis  across  the  brisk  Babel  in  which 
they  sat.  Coy  wore  a  morning-cap  with  purple  rib- 
bons. She  had  some  pink  ones,  but  took  them  out 
for  the  baby :  she  wondered  how  it  was  that  people 
minded  growing  old.  They  talked  a  little  that 
morning  about  the  geological  professor  and  his  new 
book.  Avis  spoke  calmly  of  the  great  gratification 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  453 

which  the  trustees  found  in  his  success.  They 
spoke  of  the  people  who  rented  the  house  in  High 
Street,  and  how  they  had  built  an  L,  and  cut  down 
the  elm-tree,  and  altered  the  porch.  Then  Coy 
spoke  of  Chatty  Hogarth's  Odyssey  Club,  and  of 
the  poem  Mrs.  Hogarth  had  written  for  the  Denom- 
inational Weekly. 

"  She  asked  me  how  my  babe  was  yesterday," 
said  Coy.  "I  never  want  to  know  another  thing 
about  a  woman  than  that  she  calls  a  baby  a  babe. 
I  hope  she  won't  suffocate  the  Odyssey  Club.  But 
they  say  there  are  some  fine  law-students  in  it  — 
rather  young,  though,  I  should  think.  And  the 
girls  that  are  coming  along,  study  Greek,  and  are 
really  very  pretty,  Avis,  —  that  stratum  just  below 
us,  you  know,  that  were  flirting  with  freshmen  when 
we  were  engaged.  Look  out,  Avis  !  Wait  will  cut 
herself  putting  Jack's  screwdriver  into  the  baby's 
dimple."  Then  they  talked  a  little  about  Wait, 
and  a  little  about  John  and  the  children,  and  then 
they  spoke  of  Stratford  Allen's  housekeeper ;  and 
when  Coy  had  told  her  how  comfortable  she  made 
him  since  Barbara  went,  and  how  glad  everybody 
was  that  Stratford  was  so  well  cared  for,  and  how 
much  good  he  did  with  all  his  money,  and  how  many 
fine  pictures  he  had  in  his  house,  she  said  she  sup- 
posed Avis  knew  that  the  woman's  name  was  Jessup, 
and  that  she  came  from  Texas,  where  her  husband 
had  got  shot. 

"And  of  course,  you've  heard,"  said  Coy  absently, 


454  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

" that  Stratford  bought  your  sphinx  last  winter?" 
Coy  spoke  lightly ;  but  her  own  voice  sounded  to  her 
as  if  she  had  said,  uHe  bought  your  soul."  She 
rather  wished  she  had  said  nothing  about  the  sphinx. 
She  hurried  on  to  speak  of  Barbara,  who  had  not 
married  her  minister,  but  only  a  New- York  business- 
man :  it  was  a  trial  for  a  Harmouth  girl,  but  Barbara 
bore  it  well. 

Then  she  talked  a  little  of  John  and  the  children, 
and  after  that  she  spoke  of  the  last  alumni  meeting, 
and  said  that  John  said  the  wish  to  put  up  the  monu- 
ment in  Florida  originated  with  the  members  of 
Professor  Ostrander's  first  class, — the  men  who  were 
under  him  in  his  opening  year  at  college;  clever 
men,  John  said,  and  that  they  spoke  of  Philip  with 
emotion. 

And  then,  by  way  of  variety,  she  talked  of  John 
and  the  children  a  little  more. 

"  You  seem  to  keep  pretty  well,"  said  Avis,  after 
a  silence,  "  with  all  your  care,  Coy." 

The  words  sounded  superficial  enough.  Coy  felt 
that  Avis  would  rather  be  taken  on  her  own  level, 
and  answered  carelessly,  — 

"Pretty  well,  Avis.  There's  about  so  much  bother 
in  everybody's  life,  I  suppose.  Some  people  take  it 
in  high  tragedy.  I  take  mine  out  in  the  mumps. 
I  own  my  married  life  would  have  been  happier  if 
they  hadn't  all  had  the  mumps  while  John  was  in 
Philadelphia,  and  Sarah  laid  up  with  her  broken  ankle, 
and  Deacon  Bobley  out  on  a  heresy-hunt,  and  the 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  455 

American  Board  —  as  nearly  as  I  understand  it  — 
destined  to  become  bankrupt,  unless  it  could  pay  off 
its  debt  out  of  our  church.  I  own  so  much,  Avis. 
And  besides  I'll  tell  you — I  never  told  it  before  (Ave, 
run  away  with  Jack  and  Wait,  a  minute) ,  there  is 
one  thing  I  must  admit :  I  do  not  like  to  ask  John 
for  money.  There  !  But  that  is  all,  Avis." 

Was  it  all,  indeed?  It  was  a  peaceful,  pleasant 
story.  As  the  children  shut  the  door,  it  seemed 
very  still  suddenly  in  the  parsonage-parlor:  the 
sun  was  upon  the  worn  carpet  and  the  playthings, 
Coy's  sewing- chair,  and  little  garments  lying  half- 
made,  and  purple  ribbons,  and  upon  the  baby  in  her 
lap. 

Coy  looked  up  from  her  sewing,  and  saw  Avis  sit- 
ting there,  and  watching  her ;  as  the  country,  wasted 
by  civil  war,  pauses  to  look  off  upon  the  little  neu- 
tral state. 

A  spark  sprang  into  Coy's  incurious,  gentle  face. 

"It  is  nature!"  she  cried.  "  Explain  it  how 
you  will." 

"But  I,"  said  Avis  in  a  low  voice,  after  an  ex- 
pressive pause,  —  "  I  am  nature,  too.  Explain  me, 
Coy." 

Coy  did  not  answer.  It  was  to  be  expected  that 
Avis  should  be  more  or  less  unintelligible.  But, 
when  Avis  turned  presently  to  go,  she  kissed  her, 
looking  up  with  puzzled,  affectionate  eyes.  Then 
she  lifted  the  baby  a  little  higher  on  her  neck,  and 
went  into  the  study  to  talk  to  John. 


456  THE  STORY  OF  AVIS. 

"  Somehow,"  said  Coy,  "  I  am  always  more  sorry 
for  Avis  when  I  go  away  and  think  about  her  than 
I  am  when  I  sit  and  talk  with  her." 

"  Poor  girl !  "  said  John  Rose. 

As  they  stood  in  the  window,  leaning  together, 
Avis,  in  her  widow's  dress,  in  the  color  of  the  morn- 
ing, passed  by,  leading  her  little  daughter  by  the 
hand. 

When  they  were  at  home  that  day,  more  silently, 
perhaps,  than  usual,  Wait  in  the  corner,  with  her 
picture-books,  and  her  mother  sitting  with  crossed 
hands  and  vague  eyes,  the  child  came  up,  and  said 
in  her  distinct,  impressive  fashion,  — 

"  Mamma,  I  cannot  read  this  story  till  I  am  old 
enough  ;  but  it  is  a  pretty  story,  and  I  want  to  hear 
it.  The  man  has  a  yellow  saddle,  and  his  horse  is 
red.  Read  me  what  he  had  a  red  horse  for,  and 
where  he  went  to  ;  read  me  why  the  saddle  was  yel- 
low ;  read  me  —  read  me  —  read  me  till  there  is  no 
more  to  read." 

Wait  stood  leaning  a  little,  and  stroking  the  back 
of  her  mother's  hand  with  the  palm  of  her  own.  If 
anybody  had  noticed  this,  she  would  have  stopped ; 
but  mamma  understood  about  such  things.  She  did 
not  talk  and  make  a  fuss. 

Avis  took  the  book,  and  read.  She  sat  with  her 
profile  towards  the  child. 

"  Sir  Launcelot  rode  overthwart  and  endlong  in  a 
wide  forest,  and  held  no  path  but  as  wild  adventure 
led  him.  Then  Sir  Launcelot  looked  round,  and 


THE  STORY  OF  AVIS.  457 

saw  an  old  chapel,  but  could  find  no  place  where 
he  might  enter.  And  as  he  lay,  half  waking  and 
half  sleeping  ...  he  saw  .  .  .  the  holy  vessel 
of  the  Sangreal  pass  him  by.  So  thus  he  sorrowed 
till  it  was  day,  and  heard  the  fowls  of  the  air 
sing.  .  .  . 

"  Then  the  hermit  led  the  young  knight  to  the 
Perilous  Seat ;  and  he  lifted  up  the  cloth,  and  found 
there  letters  that  said,  4  This  is  the  seat  of  Sir  Gala- 
had the  good  knight.'  This  is  he  by  whom  the 
Sangreal  shall  be  achieved.  .  .  . 

"  Now,  the  name  of  the  young  knight  was  Sir 
Galahad,  and  he  was  the  son  of  Sir  Launcelot  du 
Lac." 


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PS3142 

Ward,  E.S.P.  S7 

The  story  of  Avis. 


1_  I  BR  ARY 

UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA 
D  AVIS 


